Seahawks’ OC search enters 3rd week, Rams’ Shane Waldron, Bills’ Ken Dorsey now candidates
The Seahawks’ ongoing search for a new offensive coordinator has two more NFL assistants who have no true play-calling experience in the league.
Pete Carroll casting a wide net for the job now includes wanting to interview Los Angeles Rams passing-game coordinator Shane Waldron and Buffalo quarterbacks coach Ken Dorsey for his vacancy as Seattle’s offensive play caller. That’s according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who cited league sources.
Waldron is a 41-year-old native of Portland. He has been the Rams’ passing game coordinator for the last three years. He’s been on coach Sean McVay’s staff since Los Angeles hired McVay in 2017, first as a tight ends coach. Waldron became McVay’s passing-game coordinator in 2018.
That year, McVay told media covering the Detroit Lions (who were in the market for a new offensive coordinator at the time) that Waldron was “absolutely” ready then to be an NFL OC.
McVay calls the Rams’ plays as their head coach.
In 2019 McVay made Waldron the quarterbacks coach for Jared Goff. That preseason, McVay also gave Waldron some experience calling plays in L.A.’s exhibition games. In 2020, Dorsey went back to being the Rams’ passing-game coordinator, and Liam Coen became the Rams’ quarterbacks coach.
McVay’s offense is a system based on the run, on play-action passes and bootlegs off it, with short, quick throws with a ton of crossing routes. That scheme has given Carroll’s defense problems for years.
What he’s seeking
Carroll said in November, December and this month after NFC West-champion Seattle’s season-ending playoff loss to the Rams that the Seahawks’ offense needs to “adapt better” to how defenses played them over the latter half of 2020. That lack of adaptation is why Carroll fired Brian Schottenheimer Jan. 11 over what the Seahawks announced were “philosophical differences.”
Carroll wants to get defenses out of the two-high-safety schemes that largely shut down Russell Wilson’s deep-passing game after it flourished during the first half of the 2020 season. The ways to do that are with more running the ball and on quicker, shorter throws.
Of Wilson’s 27 passes and season-low 11 completions against the Rams in Seattle’s loss in the wild-card playoffs Jan. 9, only three went for completions of 10-19 yards. That’s the range on which Waldon’s passing game with Los Angeles has focused the last few seasons.
Waldon was a tight end and long snapper for Tufts through the 2001 season. His first NFL job was an operations intern for the New England Patriots in 2002, which was also his senior year at Tufts. Tom Brady was in his second season as the Patriots’ starting quarterback that year.
Dorsey, 39, just finished his second season as Josh Allen’s quarterbacks coach in Buffalo. The Bills lost the AFC championship game at Kansas City Sunday. Allen was fourth in the NFL in passer rating, fifth with 4,544 yards passing and fourth in touchdown passes (37) this season.
Dorsey was a national-champion quarterback at the University of Miami in 2001 and the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. He played in the NFL for San Francisco as Alex Smith’s backup in 2005 then for Cleveland as a backup to Charlie Frye and others. His final NFL season was in 2008 for the Browns.
The Carolina Panthers hired Dorsey as a scout based in south Florida in 2011. In 2013, coach Ron Rivera made him the Panthers’ quarterbacks coach for Cam Newton. Newton went 12-4 and to the Pro Bowl in his first season with Dorsey as his position coach. Newton went 15-1 and the Panthers played in Super Bowl 50 in his third season coached by Dorsey.
Carolina fired Dorsey and offensive coordinator Mike Shula following the 2017 season. Dorsey spent 2018 as an assistant athletic director at Florida International University. Then Buffalo coach Sean McDermott hired Dorsey to be the Bills’ QB coach in February 2019.
The only time Dorsey has held a play-calling position as a coach: in 2011—for Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida.
Around Miami, some believe the Dolphins may be interested in hiring Dorsey for the same opening Seattle has, offensive coordinator. The Dolphins just signed Frye, a Seahawks backup in 2007 and ‘08, to be the Dolphins’ quarterbacks coach. Dorsey and Frye were teammates with the Cleveland Browns in 2006. They reportedly remain close friends.
Dorsey isn’t calling plays anytime soon in Buffalo. Brian Daboll is firmly seated as the Bills’ offensive coordinator. Buffalo was second in the NFL in points and yards this season.
The field
These are the seventh and eighth coaches tied to the Seahawks’ OC job in the last two weeks.
Carroll has also talked to:
- Raiders running backs coach Kirby Wilson, 59, whom he’s hired twice before for New England and at USC.
- Carroll and the Seahawks are also reportedly interested in New Orleans Saints quarterbacks coach Joe Lombardi, 49. But he’s “tracking to become the new offensive coordinator” for the Los Angeles Chargers, Schefter reported Sunday.
- Carroll has talked to former head coaches Doug Pederson (Eagles) and Anthony Lynn (Chargers). Since the Seahawks became interested in him, Pederson told the Philadelphia Inquirer he is likely to sit out the 2021 season then reassess his coaching plans. Lynn has agreed to become the new offensive coordinator for Detroit, according to NFL reporter Josina Anderson Sunday night.
- Carroll has sought running-backs and quarterbacks coaches with a play-caller/coordinator past (Pep Hamilton, recently fired with Lynn’s staff by the Chargers)...
- ...and those with no full play-calling experience (Wilson and Mike Kafka, who is staying with the Super Bowl-bound Chiefs)
- Carroll is also interested in a QBs coach with play-calling experience. Lombardi was Detroit’s offensive coordinator in 2014 and the first half of the ‘15 season.
A common thread to these candidates: a basis in the running game.
Russell Wilson and Seattle’s offense sank in the latter half of the 2020 season after defenses moved strong safeties off the line of scrimmage. Defenses had been combating the Seahawks’ running game for years with single-high-safety coverage and a strong safety playing like a run-stopping linebacker. Foes went to more two-deep-safety pass coverages. That took away Wilson’s long throws and big plays to receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
The reason Schottenheimer is no longer the Seahawks’ play caller is Carroll felt Schottenheimer did not adapt to those two-deep coverages. Specifically, he didn’t run the ball or call enough short, quick throws to get teams out of the two-high looks and back into single-high-safety coverage.
“Frankly, I’d like to not play against two-deep looks next year, all season long,” Carroll said this month.
“I want to see if we can run the ball more effectively to focus the play of the opponents and see if we can force them to do things like we’d like them to do more — like we have been able to do that in the past.”
It’s become evident as Carroll’s search for a new play caller enters it’s third week: the number and varied experience levels of his targets suggest he fired Schottenheimer without spending much time before his exit interview with his coordinator Jan. 11 thinking he would. It’s clear Carroll didn’t have candidates teed up waiting to charge into the job while Seattle’s offense struggled over the latter half of the season.
It’s possible that with the breadth of candidates and their backgrounds Carroll may be contemplating a return to the shared run-game/pass-game coordinators he had from 2011-16 with Tom Cable and Darrell Bevell. That worked for consecutive Super Bowl appearances for the Seahawks. Cable had sway over the rushing offense and calling many of the running plays.
Carroll ended that shared arrangement after the 2016 season. That’s been the only one of Seattle’s last nine seasons Carroll hasn’t gotten the team to the playoffs.
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 6:46 AM.
