Search for new Seahawks offensive coordinator widens; a 5th candidate, with Tom Brady ties

The Seahawks’ search for a new play caller has widened. And moved forward.

On the same day coach Mike Macdonald, general manager John Schneider and Seattle’s leaders reportedly had second interviews with Klint Kubiak and Grant Udinksi at team headquarters in Renton, a fifth candidate emerged to possibly become the new offensive coordinator.

Byron Leftwich, a former NFL quarterback, two-time Super Bowl winner and recently Tom Brady’s offensive coordinator with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, interviewed for the same job with the Seahawks recently. CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones reported that Friday.

He’s the offensive coordinator with NFL play-calling experience Macdonald lacked with Ryan Grubb this past season. Macdonald fired the former national-title-game play caller from the Washington Huskies this month, after his only season with the Seahawks.

Leftwich, 45, was the Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator from 2019-22. He won Super Bowl 55 with Brady as his quarterback to end the 2020 season. In 2017 and ‘18 he was the Arizona Cardinals’ quarterback coach then interim offensive coordinator.

When former Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, Leftwich’s old offensive coordinator with the Pittsburgh Steelers, became Tampa Bay’s head coach in 2019 he had Leftwich calling the Buccaneers’ plays. Arians had at that point called plays for 14 NFL seasons, including as the Cardinals’ head coach before Tampa.

By the time he was in his third and final season as then-45-year-old Brady’s play caller with the Buccaneers, in 2022, Leftwich was getting criticized. Including within the Bucs’ team headquarters.

Specifically, it was for not running the ball enough.

A Bucs assistant coach, run-game coordinator Harold Goodwin, was quoted in the Tampa Bay Times that season saying of Arians’ staple running play the Buccaneers weren’t utilizing in games: “It’s in there. I can’t control what the play-caller calls.”

Entering the Buccaneers’ game against the Seahawks in Munich in November of 2022, Tampa Bay was last in the league in rushing attempts. Then Brady, through audibles at the line of scrimmage after seeing the Seahawks’ light numbers near the line, and Leftwich ran through Seattle’s porous run defense. The Buccaneers had been averaging 60 yards rushing per game entering that night in Germany. They romped for 160 and beat the Seahawks 21-16.

“They came out and broke some tendencies,” Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs said in Munich, after his Seahawks fell behind 14-0 quickly, then 21-3 in the fourth quarter that night. “They ran the ball more than they have in the past.”

Leftwich was the seventh-overall choice in the 2003 draft by Jacksonville. He was a quarterback for four teams in his 10 seasons in the league. He won a Super Bowl as Ben Roethlisberger’s backup on the 2008 Pittsburgh Steelers.

Rooney Rule

Leftwich interviewed this month with the New England Patriots for their head-coaching job.

The Patriots were chided for that. Many saw it was merely to appease the NFL’s Rooney Rule in the search for a job Leftwich was never going to get.

It went to Mike Vrabel, an obvious choice. He is a former Patriots linebacker, then head coach for the Tennessee Titans.

The Rooney Rule is the league edict teams must interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football positions.

That rule also applies to searches for offensive and defensive coordinators. The Seahawks by this weekend will have interviewed two Black men in this OC search: Leftwich and Thomas Brown.

Seattle is scheduled to interview the Chicago Bears’ 2024 interim head coach on Saturday. That’s per Joe Person of The Athletic.

The 2nd interviews. So far.

The Seahawks’ two leading candidates to succeed Grubb as play caller for 2025 are Kubiak and Udinski.

That’s judging by the fact they are the only two of the five known candidates to have second interviews.

So far.

Detroit Lions 47-year-old offensive line coach Hank Fraley interviewed last week. If the Lions win their NFC divisional playoff game Saturday against Washington, the Seahawks would not be able to interview him a second time by NFL rules until after the NFC championship game Jan. 26. Fraley has been Detroit’s line coach since 2020. He’s renowned for building and leading the Lions’ league-leading blockers for a dynamic, bullish running game.

That’s exactly what Macdonald wants his Seahawks to have.

But Colton Pouncey, Lions beat writer for the Detroit News, told The News Tribune on KJR radio Thursday Fraley could be Ben Johnson’s choice for OC — if Johnson, the Lions’ current offensive coordinator, gets a head-coaching job. Johnson has interviewed with multiple teams and is reportedly a top choice of many inside the needy Las Vegas Raiders’ franchise. Pouncey also said Fraley could stay in Detroit as the Lions’ new offensive coordinator if Johnson leaves. That’s because of how much Lions head coach Dan Campbell values what Fraley has done for Detroit’s powerful, varied running game.

The Lions were sixth in the NFL in rushing offense in the 2024 regular season.

Kubiak is the 37-year-old offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints. He was the Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator in 2021. He had the Saints scoring 40 points per game in the first weeks of this past season. Then Saints starting quarterback Derek Carr and eventually lead running back Alvin Kamara missed games with injuries. That derailed Kubiak’s run-game plan, and New Orleans’ season.

The 28-year-old Udinski just finished his third season as a Vikings assistant, this past year as their assistant offensive coordinator and assistant quarterbacks coach. Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell this week credited Udinski for keeping J.J. McCarthy learning Minnesota’s offense throughout the 2024 season the rookie 10th-overall pick missed because of a knee injury.

Some around the Vikings see Udinski as something of a football savant. A Vikings beat writer, Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, described Udinski in print this way in November: “The 28-year-old #Vikings wunderkind who’s all football, all the time — except for 10 days each summer, when he’s hiking mountain trails around the world.”

He’s done those trips solo.

“Since hiring Udinski in 2022, O’Connell has promoted him twice,” Goessling wrote in November. “This year, the 28-year-old’s official title is ‘assistant offensive coordinator/assistant quarterbacks coach.’ His unofficial roles include: mentor to McCarthy; post-practice pass rusher or receiver for Sam Darnold; advance scout and practice lieutenant for (Vikings offensive coordinator Wes) Phillips; complement to QB coach Josh McCown; ‘Crazy Grant’ to O’Connell’s kids; confidant, protégé and occasional comedic target for O’Connell.

“Udinski recalls plays with such specificity, McCarthy is convinced he must have a photographic memory. McCown watches Udinski lead a presentation to the team’s quarterbacks and sees a young O’Connell.

“It reminds me a ton of Kevin, when I had him as a quarterbacks coach (in 2015 with the Browns,” McCown, a former NFL quarterback, told The Star Tribune. “You could tell immediately, with his presence and intellect, he was going to be a really good coach. That’s definitely what I can feel from Grant.”