Seahawks hire former Huskies player, Cowboys assistant to Pete Carroll’s staff
The Seahawks have added a national-champion player from Washington as a coach, to reunite with Brian Schottenheimer.
Two NFL sources told The News Tribune Thursday afternoon Seattle has hired former Cowboys wide receiver coach Sanjay Lal to be an offensive assistant. Lal, 50, is replacing Steve Schimko.
Schimko, the Seahawks’ assistant quarterbacks coach last season and offensive assistant in 2018, left in January days after Seattle’s playoff loss at Green Bay. He is the new tight ends coach at Boston College.
Lal will be working alongside Schottenheimer for the second time in four years. Seattle’s offensive coordinator and play caller was Indianapolis’ quarterbacks coach in 2017, when Lal was the Colts’ receivers coach.
Lal is a native of London. He has also lived in Iran, Kuwait and Mexico City. He and his family moved to the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, when he was in the seventh grade.
“My family had no background in football,” Lal told the Dallas Morning News last summer. “I don’t think they even knew what football was until I started playing it. When we got to Plano, we’d play in the backyards or the front lawns. We’d play football every day. I started reading about all the players and just loved football. And I could catch, so they liked me.”
He walked on as a wide receiver at UCLA and eventually transferred to the University of Washington. He played for two Rose Bowl teams for the Huskies, including the one that won the 1991 national championship.
He spent time in the camps of the Raiders and Rams before beginning his coaching career. He coached for 11 years at the high-school and college levels. The Raiders gave Lal his first chance at NFL coaching, in 2007.
He has also been an assistant with the New York Jets (2012-2014), Buffalo Bills (2015-2016), Colts (2017) and Cowboys (2018-19).
This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 9:41 PM.
