Salk: Once again, Seahawks’ coaching search ‘just doesn’t feel right’

For the second offseason in a row, the Seahawks have been searching for a coordinator to lead one side of the football.

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Last year, the Seahawks fired offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and replaced him with first-time offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who came to Seattle from the Los Angeles Rams.

This year, the Seahawks need a new defensive coordinator after firing Ken Norton Jr. after four seasons. Reportedly, that position will go to Seahawks defensive line coach/assistant head coach Clint Hurtt.

While Hurtt appears to have the job, he was one of four known candidates for the position, and the Seahawks have reportedly been trying to add some of the other finalists to their staff in lesser roles.

Former Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Ed Donatell was reportedly set to join the coaching staff, though it now appears he will be the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. And then there’s former Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai, who has interviewed for multiple defensive coordinator vacancies across the league. Per The Seattle Times, the Seahawks are very interested in adding Desai to the coaching staff. Both Desai and Donatell worked alongside Hurtt in Chicago before Hurtt came to Seattle in 2017.

When it comes to the Seahawks hiring their next defensive coordinator and rounding out the defensive coaching staff, Mike Salk of 710 ESPN Seattle’s Mike Salk Show is a little concerned, especially because he sees some parallels to Seattle’s offensive coordinator search from last offseason.

“They kind of went through a lot of these interviews, and I’m not saying they didn’t get the guy they wanted in Shane Waldron or that he’s a bad choice. I don’t mean to insinuate that,” Salk said. “But the search never quite felt right as they were going through it, and I never was 100% sure that it was like, ‘Yep, we’ve identified these candidates, they have all this in common, this is what we want to see’ and they end up with the guy they want. And now you fast forward to this year and I would say I’m getting the same feeling again.”

With Donatell reportedly leaving Seattle before ever really starting with the team as well as it being unclear whether Desai will join the staff, Salk said the situation “just doesn’t feel right.”

“It doesn’t feel like they’re in control of it,” Salk said, “that they’re truly driving the process the way they want to. And I think that’s where the start of my concern was.”

Specifically, Salk has three concerns when it comes to this hiring process.

1. Carroll isn’t on top of next generation of coaches

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, who turned 70 in September, is the oldest head coach in the NFL. While he may not appear to own that distinction based on his energy at practices and on the sidelines, it’s a fact nonetheless.

With the league shifting younger with head coaches and coordinators the last few years, Salk wonders if Carroll still his finger on the pulse of “the next generation of smart up and comers.”

“I think that can be an offshoot or sort of an unintended consequence of being in a different generation from the up and coming coaches right now in the NFL,” Salk said. “I’m not saying that is happening, and I’m not saying that that’s the reason, but I worry about it.”

“Imagine that at the age of – what is Pete, 70? And some of these hot, young coordinators are in their late 20s, early 30s,” Salk added. “There is a generation gap there. There’s multiple generation gaps in there. And I’m not saying that Pete’s ideas are outdated, but I do think that it is harder and increasingly challenging to keep your finger on the pulse of who the young up and comers are, and having that connection (is valuable) in the league that is all about connections.”

2. Seattle isn’t an ideal spot for young coaches

“The second (concern) is that this is not a destination for young coaches, that this is not like one of the top places on their list,” Salk said. “… And I get the sense that some of that is Pete’s reputation.”

When looking at younger head coaches and coordinators across the league, common words you’ll hear are “innovative” and “creative.” Carroll, especially with his defenses, has typically had a more simple scheme. Salk thinks that may cause younger coaches to think twice about joining the Seahawks’ coaching staff.

“If the perception is that your scheme isn’t the most innovative to up and comers … I think that’s probably a challenge to try to convince them that this is the place to foster all of the creativity. And that seems to be an issue,” Salk said. “Pete’s style seems to be fairly simple. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. I think it works very well. But if you’re going after some of the most creative minds, they’re maybe not as interested in a fairly simple style of defense where you just line up and hit the other person.”

3. Younger generation of coaches want more control

Salk’s last concern with the Seahawks not being able to attract up and coming coaches? A generational divide.

“The younger generation, I think, wants control. And I don’t think that’s unique to coaching,” Salk said. “I think that most people who work in the business world would say that about the younger millennials, and Gen Z, etc. One of the hallmarks of that generation entering the workforce over the last 10-15 years has been the idea that they want to control their own career. They want control, they want real power right away, right?”

For those thinking of coming to the Seahawks, there’s a reputation that they may not be able to do that.

“So if you’re coming to Seattle, is the reputation here that you are going to have complete autonomy, complete control to kind of just go implement your thing? No, that’s not the rep,” Salk said. “I don’t know the truth of it, but my fear is that if you are a creative, big-brained, excited young coordinator candidate that this isn’t the spot you desperately want to come to because you’re not going to get to go do your thing.”

Seahawks ‘chasing their tail?’

Salk said the Seahawks very well may still land Desai, who’s a younger coach at 38 and has an interesting background of having been a professor. He said there’s a chance that the Seahawks nailed their defensive coordinator hire with Hurtt, who could become a head coaching candidate in the near future because of his job as Seattle’s D-coordinator.

“All of those things are absolutely possible. This is not telling you that the sky is falling,” he said. “But does it smell funny to anybody else? It gets my radar up. It at least makes me wonder what the heck is really going on and why it’s been challenging for them to try to bring in some of the most creative, biggest brains in the NFL and put as much talent as you can in the room and try to figure stuff out.”

As far as Donatell heading to Minnesota, Salk has no issue with that because he’d be a defensive coordinator there, which he wouldn’t be for the Seahawks. But all in all, this hiring process has still felt off.

“All of it just feels like they’re kind of chasing their tail a little bit,” Salk said. “And now it’s in scramble, hurry-up mode … And now you’re bringing in a guy in Karl Scott, who again may be God’s gift to coaching, right? His meteoric rise from some unheralded and unheard-of colleges to eventually being at Alabama and then with the Vikings.”

Scott, 36, is reportedly joining the Seahawks as defensive passing game coordinator after coaching defensive backs at Alabama and then with the Vikings in 2021.

“Maybe Karl Scott is the future. I don’t know. I don’t know word one about the guy. But it feels like he’s come out of nowhere in all of this,” Salk said. “… I think people who have been in hiring positions in their jobs know how that feels. You focused on one candidate, maybe you’ve got kind of narrow tunnel vision on trying to get that person and you assume that it’s going to happen. And then the next thing you know something else goes wrong and it doesn’t happen and somebody else offers that person a job, or that person doesn’t want to work in your city, doesn’t want to work on your team or (for) your company … and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to find somebody, we are missing someone in the spot.’ And now you’re scrambling and you’re looking high and low. And it’s just bungled.”

Salk said this reminds him a bit of how the Seahawks, from a roster perspective, have reacted to missing in key spots and then had to correct their mistakes in other ways.

“There’s this element of kind of now chasing it a little bit. Kind of like what happened with them with some of their draft picks, where you made a couple of mistakes,” Salk said. “You got Malik McDowell, and then you’re chasing it with Sheldon Richardson, right? You don’t get a left tackle and some of those go wrong, and then you’re chasing it by trading for Duane Brown, which thankfully has worked out. Or you completely screw up trying to replace the Legion of Boom when you draft Mike Tyson and Tedric Thompson and then you end up chasing it because you spend two first-round picks to bring in Jamal Adams. It just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t smell right.”

Listen to the full discussion at this link or in the player below.

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