Did a new-old candidate for the Seahawks’ offensive-coordinator job just become available?

Has the Seahawks’ search for a new offensive coordinator just gained a new candidate?

A new-old candidate, that is?

The Dallas Cowboys are not bringing back head coach Mike McCarthy for the 2025 season, according to multiple reports Monday. That means McCarthy’s assistant coaches are now also looking for jobs. Incoming head coaches bring their own guys, particularly hand-picked coordinators, to their new positions.

That means Cowboys offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer is about to become available.

Yes, Schottenheimer, the Seahawks’ offensive coordinator for the 2018, ‘19 and ‘20 seasons.

The Seahawks are beginning their second week of coach Mike Macdonald assessing whom to hire to call plays for Seattle’s offense in 2025. The team has two interviews scheduled for this week.

Macdonald fired Ryan Grubb last week. The move came one day after the former University of Washington offensive coordinator finished his only season as Seattle’s OC. The Seahawks missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season, the first time that’s happened since the 2008-’09 seasons.

Macdonald, general manager John Schneider and the Seahawks interviewed Detroit Lions offensive-line coach Hank Fraley for the OC job Friday.

They are scheduled to interview New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak on Tuesday.

The Seahawks also are scheduled to talk to exiting Chicago Bears interim head coach Thomas Brown about the coordinator job. Brown’s interview with Seattle is Saturday, The Athletic reported.

Macdonald’s and the Seahawks’ search is unlikely to end with those three.

“We want to have an open mind,” Macdonald said last week. “We want to try to find the best fit for our football team and the guys we have on offense right now.”

Could that be Schottenheimer?

Brian Schottenheimer’s last Seahawks go-round

No one had, as of Monday evening, indicated to The News Tribune that Schottenheimer is on the Seahawks’ list for a possible second go-round.

Yet he fits what Macdonald is seeking in an offensive coordinator, in two ways.

First, and chiefly, quarterback Geno Smith knows Schottenheimer’s system and terminology. Smith ran it in Seattle in 2019 and ‘20. He was the backup to starter Russell Wilson in those Schottenheimer seasons.

Every other candidate would be bringing a system and play language mostly, if not totally, foreign to Smith. He would have to learn it in his 13th NFL offseason this spring and summer.

It’d be his third new system in three years. Seattle had Shane Waldron as offensive coordinator in the 2023 season under Pete Carroll. Then Grubb brought in his UW system for this past season.

Second, what Schottenheimer did at the start of his Seattle tenure is what Macdonald wants his new Seahawks OC to do — and what Grubb did not do enough of: Run the ball.

In 2018, Schottenheimer’s first season replacing fired Darrell Bevell as Seattle’s play caller, the Seahawks were first in the NFL in rushing offense. They were second in rush attempts.

In 2019, Schottenheimer’s Seahawks offense was fourth in the NFL in rushing and third in running plays called. That was the last season lead back Chris Carson played at least 50% of the team’s offensive snaps.

“You guys get tired of hearing me say it, but the word ‘balance.’ We want to be balanced,” Schottenheimer said in December 2019.

“Everything feeds off the running game.”

That’s exactly the “physical mentality” Macdonald keeps saying he wants for his 2025 Seahawks offense. The head coach regrets his ‘24 offense lacked that physicality.

Seattle finished 28th in the league in rushing offense and 29th in rush attempts — despite being 17th in yards per carry — under Grubb.

In Schottenhimer’s third Seattle season, Carson’s many injuries began piling up in 2020. He played 12 games. The Seahawks had to sign journeyman running back Carlos Hyde in the middle of the season. Wilson became the team’s second-leading rusher over 16 games, with 513 yards.

So Schottenheimer had Wilson pass more, and deeper. The 2020 Seahawks won the division setting a team record for points scored in a season, 459. Schottenheimer wanted to throw the ball deep to maximize the talents of Wilson, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Carroll wanted to get back to more running.

Sound familiar?

It was Carroll as then the team’s ultimate football authority, not GM Schneider, who fired Schottenheimer in Seattle four years ago. That was following the Seahawks’ 2020 NFC West title but then one-and-done playoff exit in a home loss to the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round.

Carroll and the Seahawks cited “philosophical differences” in Schottenheimer’s firing in January 2021.

Yes, Schottenheimer got fired by Carroll for the same stated and implied reasons Grubb did by Macdonald last week.

Macdonald said the new coordinator is going to have the latitude to hire his own offensive position coaches.

“When you decide to bring in a new coordinator, there’s probably going to be some movement with it,” he said. “We want our new coordinator to feel like they have a lot of influence in their staff.”

The 51-year-old Schottenheimer’s experience and extensive network of coaching colleagues is another plus, opposite of Grubb, for Seattle’s OC search. He’s began coaching in the NFL in 1997. He’s been on the offensive staffs for 10 different head coaches on nine different teams in the league.

About the only current coaching tree Schottenheimer hasn’t touched in his career is the one Macdonald is from and supremely respects: That of John and Jim Harbaugh.

The Cowboys hired Schottenheimer as an analyst in 2022. He’s been Dallas’ offensive coordinator the last two seasons.

The Cowboys were 14th in the NFL in rushing offense and rushing attempts in 2023. They didn’t augment their running game for this past season, infamously passing on signing free-agent running back Derrick Henry, who is now starring for AFC playoff winner Baltimore. Dallas sank to 27th in the league in rushing offense this past season.

It was still better than the Seahawks’ run game.

Seattle’s interviews so far

Fraley gets tons of credit for Detroit’s rushing offense and line being among the NFL’s best. He and his team host Washington on Saturday in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. He’s said to have prepared some candidates to join him as assistants when he interviewed last week for Seattle’s coordinator job.

Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is getting interviews and long looks for some of the league’s six head-coaching vacancies. If Johnson gets hired for one, as many expect, he might take Fraley with him on his new staff. Or Detroit could make a push to promote Fraley to replace Johnson as offensive coordinator.

Brown, 38, was the Chicago Bears’ passing-game coordinator then interim offensive coordinator then interim head coach for the 2024 season. The Bears announced Monday they had completed interviewing him for their permanent head-coaching position. He was the Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator in 2023.

Kubiak, 37, was scheduled to interview Monday for the Cleveland Browns’ offensive-coordinator opening. He was the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive coordinator in 2021 and had success that season with early-down running. That was another Seahawks problem area this past season.

Kubiak is expected to need a new job soon after the Saints hire a new head coach.