Why Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald chose a DC he has no history with

New Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald arrives in town after two successful seasons as Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator, and the choice for his own DC is someone nobody saw coming.

Three Takeaways: Seahawks’ Macdonald sits down with Brock & Salk

Seattle’s new DC is Aden Durde, who has quite the story: he’s the first full-time British-born coach in NFL history, having held roles on the defensive side of the ball for the Atlanta Falcons and Dallas Cowboys over the past six seasons.

As surprising as it may be at first to hear Durde talk football X’s and O’s in a British accent, it is perhaps just as surprising that he’s joining Macdonald’s staff despite the two having no previous history coaching together.

After joking with Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk about Durde’s accent being a factor in his hiring, Macdonald explained Monday why the Seahawks were impressed enough with him to make him the DC.

“I think it speaks to the process that we that we came in (with), the mentality we had about trying to find the best people with the personality and the mindset that we’re looking for and the track record,” Macdonald said. “Aden came in highly recommended, got on our interview list and and knocked it out of the park when we first sat down.”

While Macdonald and Durde may just be getting to know each other, something that likely helped Durde’s cause is the fact that he’s worked closely with Dan Quinn throughout his career. Quinn, who recently took the Washington Commanders head coach position, was Seahawks DC during their back-to-back trips to the Super Bowl in the 2013 and 2014 seasons. He also took the Falcons to the Super Bowl as a head coach and most recently saw success as Dallas Cowboys OC.

Under Quinn, Durde was Atlanta’s defensive quality control coach from 2018-19 and outside linebackers in 2020, then Cowboys defensive line coach the past three years.

Macdonald, who has said he will be the Seahawks’ defensive playcaller next season, feels he and Durde have a lot in common in how they approach coaching a defense.

“Just listening to him talk about how he sees the game was very similar to how I saw it,” Macdonald said, “in terms of what you needed to do to be able to defend offenses these days, and he had some really interesting perspective. So we felt like, shoot, we gotta get this guy here in person, brought him in, (he) did a great job and it just kind of took off from there. So I’m really excited to work with him.”

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald in the podcast at this link or either the video or audio player near the top of this post.

More on the Seattle Seahawks

• Huard: What OC Ryan Grubb can do to improve Seahawks’ offense
• Salk: How a DK trade could help solve Seahawks’ roster issues
• Seahawks’ Macdonald details what drew him to OC Ryan Grubb
• Why Joel Klatt thinks J.J. McCarthy fits as Seattle Seahawks QB
• Huard: Good, bad and ugly of Seattle Seahawks getting OC Ryan Grubb

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