After two great seasons as the defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens, Mike Macdonald, the new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, comes in town. Unexpectedly, he chooses someone else to be his own DC.
Even while it could come as a surprise at first to hear Durde speak with a British accent while discussing football Xs and Os, it might come as a surprise even more that he is joining Macdonald’s team even though the two have never before coached together.
Having joked with Brock and Salk of Seattle Sports that Durde’s accent had a role in his employment, Macdonald gave an explanation on Monday as to why the Seahawks were impressed enough with him to select him as the DC.
I think it speaks to the approach we took when we first arrived, the attitude we had when attempting to identify the finest candidates that fit our criteria in terms of temperament, outlook, and experience,” Macdonald remarked. “Aden was highly recommended, made it onto our interview list, and gave us an outstanding performance right away.”
Even if Macdonald and Durde are still relatively new to one another, the fact that Durde has collaborated closely with Dan Quinn throughout his career probably aided his case. Quinn, who was just hired as the head coach of the Washington Commanders, was the DC for the Seahawks in their consecutive Super Bowl runs in 2013 and 2014. He was successful as the head coach of the Falcons and most recently as the offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys.
Under Quinn, Durde coached outside linebackers in 2020 and defensive quality control for Atlanta from 2018 to 2019, and for the last three years, he has served as the defensive line coach for the Cowboys.
In terms of what you needed to do to be able to defend offensive these days, just listening to him talk about how he sees the game was a lot like how I viewed it, Macdonald added. “He had some really interesting perspective.” We then invited him in, feeling like, “Hey, we really need to get this guy here in person,” and after that, everything kind of went off. I’m very forward to collaborate with him.
