Where Seahawks coach search stands after Ben Johnson backs out. Enter ... Mike Kafka?
The Seahawks don’t need to decide whether Ben Johnson impressed them enough to become their first-time head coach.
Johnson made that decision for them.
The Lions offensive coordinator told the Seahawks and the Washington Commanders, the teams with the NFL’s remaining coaching vacancies, thanks but no thanks Tuesday. He decided to stay with Detroit, as the league’s television network first reported.
The 37-year-old Johnson decided that the morning after Seahawks general manager John Schneider flew by team owner Allen family’s private jet from Seattle to Detroit to interview the Lions’ play caller Monday night.
That was a day after Detroit blew a 24-7 lead and lost at the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 in the NFC championship game.
So where does the Seahawks’ search to replace fired coach Pete Carroll go entering its fourth week?
Where that Allen private jet went Tuesday: To Baltimore.
A league source confirmed to The News Tribune that Schneider traveled from Detroit to Baltimore to interview Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald. That sit-down happened Tuesday.
“The defensive Sean McVay,” is how NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said teams that have interviewed Macdonald this month see him.
The Allen-owned jet returned from Baltimore to Seattle just after 3 p.m. Tuesday. Schneider was on it, back home to assess what’s next with Macdonald or any of the other four candidate with which the GM had second interviews.
While Schneider is in Seattle deciding on a new coach, the Seahawks’ scouts are off to Senior Bowl annual showcase for college players entering the NFL. That began Tuesday in Mobile, Alabama.
On Monday as Schneider was in Detroit talking to Johnson, Macdonald interviewed with Washington.
In the first coaching hire of his 14 years as Seattle’s general manager, Schneider had second interviews last week with Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham.
That put the Seahawks in compliance with the Rooney Rule, the league’s mandate that at least two in-person interviews for each team’s head-coach jobs be with minority candidates.
Macdonald and Quinn, the Seahawks’ coordinator of the defense 10 years ago that was the league’s best and played in consecutive Super Bowls, are believed to be the front-runners for Seattle’s head job. That is if Schneider wants another defensive-minded head coach to follow what Carroll was for the Seahawks since 2010 — and to fix the weakest part of Seattle’s team.
If he doesn’t...
Enter ... Mike Kafka?
If this is a true break from the Carroll era and a new approach, Kafka is the offensive mind that moves to the top of the candidates list with Johnson out.
The Giants flopped this past season. Kafka had an offensive line that was one of the league’s worst. Yet the season before, 2022, the 36-year-old Giants play caller helped get quarterback Daniel Jones and New York into the playoffs for the first time in six years.
Four NFL teams interviewed Kafka last offseason for head-coaching vacancies. The Arizona Cardinals had Kafka as a finalist for their head job that went to then-Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
More intriguing: Before the Giants hired him for the 2022 season, Kafka was the quarterbacks coach of Patrick Mahomes for two seasons then coach Andy Reid’s passing game coordinator for two more years with the Kansas City Chiefs. Kafka has a Super Bowl ring from that stint and coached Mahomes in a second Super Bowl.
Mahomes gave to Arizona Sports last year a strong endorsement for Kafka when the Cardinals were considering him for the Cardinals’ job.
“Coach Kafka is a special person and a special coach,” Mahomes told Arizona Sports in early 2023. “When he first got here, he was quality control (in 2017). That was my first year as a rookie so I spent a lot of time with Coach Kafka where he was teaching me the playbook and teaching me how to be a quarterback in the NFL.
“That continued for a long time and when he left, I knew he was going to be a head coach soon. I know he’s down in Arizona, so if he gets hired there he’ll get that place turned around.
“He’s a great coach and a great person as well, so I’m excited for him.”
Kafka, a former starting quarterback at Northwestern, was a backup quarterback for Reid in Philadelphia in the 2010 and ‘11 seasons when Reid was the Eagles’ head coach.
Schneider, a Green Bay-area native, was a Packers scout when Reid was an offensive assistant for Mike Holmgren in Green Bay, in the mid-1990s.
What makes Macdonald attractive
The 36-year-old Macdonald has been coordinating Baltimore’s league-leading defense the last two seasons. That was after one season as coordinator of a dominant defense at the University of Michigan.
Macdonald has recently done what nobody with the Seahawks has done in years. He not only beat San Francisco, Macdonald’s defense dominated the 49ers in Santa Clara last month in the Ravens’ runaway win Christmas night. The Ravens confused 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy. He threw four interceptions, two more than his previous career high. He had a completion rate of just 56.3%, the second-lowest of his career. Baltimore beat the Super Bowl-bound NFC champions 33-19.
Seattle hasn’t beaten San Francisco by at least that many points since 2018.
The Seahawks have lost five consecutive games to their NFC West-rival 49ers the last two seasons. None of those five losses have been close.
Seattle isn’t getting anywhere it wants to go — out of the division, into home playoff games, back to the Super Bowl — until it does what Macdonald has done, convincingly: Beat San Francisco.
This story was originally published January 30, 2024 at 4:27 PM.
