Source: Seahawks to do the expected, hire developmental defensive coordinator Aden Durde
The Seahawks have their new defensive coordinator.
And he is the younger, developmental coach that fits well under Seattle’s new head coach and defensive play caller Mike Macdonald.
A league source told The News Tribune Friday afternoon the Seahawks are expected to hire 44-year-old former Dallas Cowboys defensive line coach Aden Durde as their new defensive coordinator. An announcement from the team on the hiring of the British native who began coaching in the NFL only six years ago, as a quality-control assistant, is likely early next week.
Durde (DER-dee) becomes the first British-born defensive coordinator in league history. He was considered a candidate to replace Dan Quinn as Dallas’ defensive coordinator, a job that reportedly went to former Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer on Thursday instead.
Quinn, the Seahawks’ Super Bowl coordinator 10 years ago, became the Washington Commanders new head coach this week.
Macdonald said last week he will be calling Seattle’s defensive plays this season as Seattle’s head coach. That’s why Seahawks general manager John Schneider hired Baltimore’s defensive coordinator from the last two seasons, to bring Macdonald’s NFL-best defensive schemes this season to Seattle.
The Seahawks ranked 30th in the 32-team league defense this past season, and 31st against the run. That’s why they didn’t make the playoffs for only the third time in 12 years. It’s why they fired Pete Carroll Jan. 10.
With the new head coach calling the defense and its plays, it fit that the “defensive coordinator” would be a promoted position coach younger in the profession, whom Macdonald could develop.
Durde is that.
He was born in Middlesex, England. He told NFLUK’s podcast The Hard Yards last year he played some ice hockey growing up. He also had a friend who lived down the street from him in London who owned an American football. He began playing with that. He played for the London Olympians, an American football team in England’s second tier of the sport. Durde then got scouted to play linebacker for the Scottish Claymores in NFL Europe in 2003-04. He spent some time in the 2005 NFL offseason with the Carolina Panthers before he returned to NFL Europe playing for Hamburg from 2005-07. His playing career ended after some time in the 2008 offseason with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Durde was then the head of football development at NFLUK. He also was as the defensive coordinator in the BAFA National Leagues for six seasons.
He joined NFL coaching in 2018 as a defensive quality-control coach for the Atlanta Falcons. He moved to Falcons outside-linebackers coach in 2020. The Cowboys hired him as their defensive line coach before the 2021 season.
Offensive coordinator update
The Seahawks have yet to hire a new offensive coordinator to replace departed Shane Waldron from Carroll’s staff.
One reported candidate for the OC job in Seattle is off the market. UCLA coach Chip Kelly, whom The Ringer this week reported had an interview with the Seahawks for the offensive-coordinator position, agreed Friday to become the new OC at Ohio State. That’s per multiple reports.
A league source told The News Tribune last week former Washington Huskies play caller Ryan Grubb was “under consideration” by the Seahawks to possibly become their new offensive coordinator. Nothing so far had come of that “consideration” as of Friday evening.
This week, Grubb told influential boosters in a national college signing-day meeting in Tuscaloosa that he is Alabama’s new offensive coordinator under former UW coach Kalen DeBoer.
But that doesn’t officially take Grubb out of anything for the Seahawks. Alabama’s athletic and football offices have not announced Grubb’s hiring there. In fact, the only coach listed officially on the football staff remains DeBoer.
It does make it trickier for Grubb, Alabama, its recruits, DeBoer — and the Seahawks — to hire Grubb.
The fact all other NFL offensive-coordinator positions are reportedly filled — including the New Orleans Saints waiting until after Sunday’s Super Bowl to announce San Francisco 49ers assistant Klint Kubiak as their new OC — means the Seahawks have no competition within the league to hire their new play caller. They have the remaining field of candidates, from college and pro football. They are competing against only themselves, time-wise.
So it’s possible the Seahawks are waiting until after the Super Bowl, as well, to talk to offensive assistants on the 49ers and/or Kansas City Chiefs. Perhaps Joe Bleymaier, the 41-year-old passing-game coordinator for Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Reid, Kansas City’s offensive-guru head coach, brought Bleymaier into NFL coaching as a Chiefs quality-control coach in 2016. He was Reid’s passing-game analyst and assistant quarterback coach for Mahomes from 2018 through ‘20. In 2021, some saw him as a candidate to replace Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy should Bieniemy leave Kansas City.
“I’ve mentioned Joe Bleymaier in the past,” Reid told reporters in Kansas City at the end of the 2020 season. “I joke about the ‘Joe Files.’ He’s got a file of things that take you anywhere and everywhere that football is played.”
Bleymaier became Kansas City’s wide receiver coach for 2021-22. When Bieniemy left to become the play caller for the Washington Commanders before the 2023 season, Bleymaier became the Chiefs’ pass game coordinator.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider was a Packers scout from 1993-96. That’s when Reid first began coaching in the NFL, in Green Bay as its assistant line coach and tight-ends coach. Schneider continues to count Reid in his wide stable of contacts and advisors across the NFL.
League rules prohibit teams from hiring assistants who are coaching in the Super Bowl until after the NFL championship game.
This story was originally published February 9, 2024 at 1:21 PM.
