RENTON – The Bills on Wednesday announced that they’ve hired former Panthers assistant Sean McDermott to be their head coach, a job that Seahawks defensive coordinator Kris Richard interviewed for Sunday night.

“It was a great experience,” Richard said Wednesday, after McDermott’s hiring was official. “The guys that I was in there with – and gals – were fantastic. They’re really good human beings. It felt good to kind of piece everything together, create your formula, your philosophy, your ideas, and it was just an awesome experience. I’m very grateful.”

It was the first time Richard had interviewed for a head-coaching job, and there’s been no indication that he’s a consideration for any of the other remaining NFL openings. So it appears he’ll have to wait until next year to get another shot.

Not that he’s has been waiting all that long. That Richard, 37, was even a candidate for one job is a reflection of how quickly he’s risen through the coaching ranks. He’s only been a defensive coordinator for two seasons now, having worked his way up in Seattle since joining Pete Carroll’s staff in 2010 as an assistant defensive backs coach. He spent the two years before that getting his foot in the coaching door as a graduate assistant at USC, where he played for Carroll.

“I’m ready,” Richard said when asked what he learned about himself from his interview with Buffalo.

Carroll would hope so. He has long talked about how important he considers it to do whatever he can to help his assistants land promotions elsewhere, both for their career advancement and also to make Seattle that much more appealing when it’s the Seahawks’ turn to poach from another team’s coaching staff.

“Probably one of the best things that Coach Carroll has done for us as a staff is that he’s challenged us to personally come up with a philosophy, create an identity for if you are ever presented with an opportunity that you know what you want to do, you know who are you,” Richard said. “So that’s really what it is. You’ve got to go on the road and you have to search and you have to recognize and figure out who you are, what you want your football team to be and how would you do it. So he’s challenged us with that each and every single year since 2010, so I’ve been preparing for a while.”