The latest: The Seahawks are said to be talking to potential coaches.
Several NFL insiders have said in the past 24 hours that the Seahawks are going to interview two well-known adjunct coaches whose teams were knocked out from the NFL playoffs on Sunday.
As the Seattle Seahawks begin their second round of head coach interviews, they will meet with Dallas Cowboys defensive assistant Dan Quinn on Thursday. The team should be happy with how other coaching openings have fallen so far.
Seattle may have wanted to talk to former assistant coach Dave Canales, who is now rumored to be taking over as head coach at Carolina, but he never really seemed like a possibility for a return back to the Great Northwest.
Neither was Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the Michigan Wolverines and a former arch-enemy in the NFC West. Harbaugh accepted the coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers on Wednesday.
The job became open earlier this evening when the Panthers reportedly decided not to renew Chris Tabor’s contract for a third year.
After taking their time to find a replacement for Pete Carroll, only the Commanders or Falcons have not yet decided to hire a new head coach.
This means that the Seahawks have plenty of good candidates to choose from and can take their time to make sure they make the right hire.
Five reported candidates were set up for second interviews by Seattle. This includes Quinn, who was Carroll’s defensive coordinator when the team made it to back-to-back Super Bowls in 2013 and 2014. None of these candidates got a job offer from another team.
There are still good candidates, such as Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, Raiders defensive leader Patrick Graham, Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, as well as Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka.
A lot of other candidates who interviewed with the Seahawks in the first round, like Browns offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, are yet to sign on the dotted line and accept another coaching job.
Johnson is getting ready for the NFC Championship Game right now, so he can’t be interviewed again until January 29.
However, the team could talk to Dolphins coach Frank Smith or Texans quarterbacks coach Bobby Slowik again, even though their teams are out of the playoffs.
Mike Kaye in the Charlotte Observer says that the team has asked for permission to talk to Tracy Smith, who is an assistant defensive coach for the Seattle Seahawks, about the new job opening.
Smith has been a coach in the NFL for 15 years. He has also played for the Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco 49ers, the Oakland Raiders when they were still in Oakland, and the Houston Texans, where he was the special teams coordinator in 2020.
The player from Beaumont, Texas, shared the sidelines with Dave Canales, who is now the head coach of the Panthers. In 2021 and 2022, Canales was the Seahawks’ passing game coordinator as well as quarterbacks coach.
Along with Smith, the Panthers are said to have asked for permission to talk to Brad Idzik, who coaches wide receivers for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Marcus Brady, who is a senior offensive assistant for the Philadelphia Eagles. Both are candidates for the job of offensive coordinator.
His first job as a coach was at the University of California, Davis. In 2023, he will be in charge of the Panthers’ defense.
Pro Football Focus ranked Evero’s Carolina defense tied for 15th at the end of the year, even though the team had a 2-15 record.
The Seahawks aren’t just one organization interested in Evero. The Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons also want to talk to the 43-year-old coach again.
Graham also interviewed with the Los Angeles Chargers over their open head coaching job. He has gotten a lot of attention because the Raiders’ defense was so good in the second half of the 2023 season.
Reports say the Raiders are hoping to keep him on the staff under new coach Antonio Pierce if he doesn’t get a job as head coach with another NFL team.
Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times says that Kafka had his first interview concerning the Seahawks on Friday.
He has talked to the Seahawks before; in 2021, he interviewed for the job of offensive coordinator, but Shane Waldron got the job instead.