Hall of Famer Steve Hutchinson rejoins Seahawks as they announce their staff for 2020
Any hard feelings from how Steve Hutchinson left the Seahawks years ago are now completely gone. Because he’s back.
The Hall-of-Fame and Super Bowl guard is now a Seahawks staffer.
Seattle announced its 2020 coaching and front-office staff under coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider on Wednesday. The headlining move: Hutchinson as a new “football consultant” on the personnel side.
Hutchinson was a first-round draft choice by Seattle in 2001. He was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last month, the result of starring on the best offensive line in Seahawks history. Hutchinson was between Hall-of-Fame left tackle Walter Jones and center Robbie Tobeck on Seattle’s first Super Bowl team, in the 2005 season.
He made the first three of his seven Pro Bowl teams had the first two of five All-Pro selections while as Seattle’s left guard from 2001-05 for coach Mike Holmgren. Hutchinson started from the first game of his rookie season through his departure following the 2005 season and Super Bowl 40, the Seahawks’ loss to Pittsburgh in Detroit.
Months after that game, Hutchinson left the Seahawks in controversy. His agent, Tom Condon, included a so-called “poison-pill” clause in a free-agent contract offer from Minnesota that Seattle would not match. Hutchinson signed with the Vikings before the ‘06 season. He retired following the 2012 season, his only one with the Tennessee Titans.
Hutchinson returned to Seattle to raise the team’s “12th Man” flag at the Seahawks’ playoff win over Detroit in January 2016 inside CenturyLink Field. That indicated any hard feelings were mostly buried—as have his previous comments that if it were up to him he’d go into the Hall of Fame representing the Seahawks.
Hutchinson isn’t the only former Seahawks first-round pick with a new job on Seattle’s staff. Aaron Curry just got promoted into a full-time job as a defensive assistant. He was a part-time assistant who worked with Bobby Wagner, K.J. Wright and the team’s linebackers in 2019.
The team confirmed what an NFL source told The News Tribune Tuesday, that Seattle promoted Dave Canales from quarterbacks coach to passing game coordinator and Austin Davis from offensive assistant to quarterbacks coach.
Davis was Russell Wilson’s backup QB on the Seahawks in 2017. The 30-year-old Davis is six months younger than Wilson. He will now be Wilson’s position coach—in title, anyway. Day to day, offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer goes deep with Wilson into the fundamentals of quarterbacking.
Canales, 38, has been an assistant in Seattle since Carroll arrived to lead the team before the 2010 season. Canales worked with the Seahawks’ wide receivers from 2010-17.
Brennan Carroll, one of the head coach’s sons, is the new run game coordinator for offense. He was the team’s offensive “scheme specialist” and assistant offensive line coach in 2019.
Nick Sorensen, last season’s secondary coach, gets an added title of nickel defensive back specialist for 2020.
The Seahawks officially announced what The News Tribune confirmed last month: former University of Washington Rose Bowl receiver Sanjay Lal is a new senior offensive assistant. Lal, 50, is replacing Steve Shimko. The Seahawks’ assistant quarterbacks coach last season and offensive assistant in 2018 left in January days after Seattle’s playoff loss at Green Bay. Shimko is the new tight ends coach at Boston College.
Lal will be working with 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.
The Seahawks announced Damione Lewis as a defensive assistant. He is a former NFL first-round pick and defensive end. His most recent job was as an assistant athletic director at Florida International University. Lewis was on Carroll’s Seahawks’ staff in 2017 while participating in the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship.
Keli’i Kekuewa is a new offensive assistant. He was a graduate assistant at Notre Dame last year.
Assistant defensive line coach Jethro Franklin is not returning in 2020 after two seasons with the Seahawks.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:29 PM.
