NFL
Durde ‘Knocked It Out Of the Park!’ What Cowboys Ex Brings to Seattle
Just as general manager John Schneider did throughout his search to replace Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald has kept an open mind pursuing assistants to fill out his first staff in the Pacific Northwest.
Rather than simply hire a bunch of coaches who he worked with previously, Macdonald has cast a wide net for everything from offensive coordinator to secondary coach, choosing to retain Karl Scott from Carroll’s staff for the latter position. But so far, the most surprising addition to his staff has come in the form of recently-hired defensive coordinator Aden Durde, who he had never met before interviewing for the job earlier this month.
Drawing a few chuckles in his first Monday radio show with Mike Salk and Brock Huard on Seattle Sports 710, when asked about Durde’s thick British accent, Macdonald joked that hearing him talk for the first time put him over the top against the rest of the competition.
“Yeah, that was the driving force. As soon as I heard Aden talk, I knew that was the guy,” Macdonald laughed. “I was surprised. I thought we were gonna go to a Sounders game when he started talking about football.”
Previously starring in the 2021 installment of HBO’s Hard Knocks, Aden Durde has done an exemplary job in every position he’s held in the NFL, leading to his hire as Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator.
Apparently, Macdonald didn’t see any of the Cowboys Hard Knocks episodes on HBO in 2021, as Durde’s accent was on full display for the world to see. In a league where few international coaches have found their way onto NFL staffs, he became one of the stars of the show, even comically being compared to Winston Churchill by owner Jerry Jones on an episode.
But in all seriousness, while the accent may have caught him off guard initially, Macdonald wasn’t drawn to the ascending Durde because of how he spoke. The Middlesex, England native emerged as a legitimate candidate recommended to the first-time head coach by peers, earning a spot on his short list for interviews after doing a fantastic job coaching a ferocious defensive line in Dallas over the past three seasons.
“I think it speaks to the process that we that we came in with and the mentality we had about trying to find the best people with the personality and the mindset that we’re looking for and the track record,” Macdonald said of Durde. “Aden came in highly, highly recommended and got on our interview list and knocked it out of the park.”
A rare homegrown success story in the now-defunct NFL Europe, Durde began his football career with the London Olympians before playing multiple seasons as a linebacker with the Scottish Claymores and the Hamburg Sea Devils. Starring in the league overseas, he spent brief stints with the Carolina Panthers and Kansas City Chiefs before hanging up his cleats and transitioning into coaching in 2009.
To kick off his coaching journey, Durde returned to his original team as a defensive coordinator for the London Olympians, spending six seasons with the team before participating in internships with the Cowboys and Falcons through the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship. After a brief stint as the head of football development at NFLUK, he returned to the Falcons as a defensive quality control coach on Dan Quinn’s staff in 2018.
Impressing Quinn in his two seasons as a quality control coach, he received a promotion to linebackers coach in 2020, maintaining that role after the Falcons fired their head coach midway through the season. Following Quinn to Dallas months later, he signed on as the Cowboys defensive line coach in 2021, just in time to debut with his new team on Hard Knocks in front of a global audience.
Playing a key role in Dallas’ success with top-seven defenses each of the past three seasons, Durde demonstrated the ability to coach both young players and veterans at a high level. Along with Micah Parsons promptly becoming a superstar harassing quarterbacks off the edge, defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa and edge rusher Dorance Armstrong Jr. found great success early in their careers playing for him. Dependable veteran Demarcus Lawrence made two Pro Bowls and defensive tackle Jonathan Hankins rejuvenated his career as well.
Early in their first conversation, which happened remotely either by phone or Zoom, Macdonald quickly hit it off with Durde, whose unique path to the NFL and viewpoints on the game piqued his interest immediately.
“When we first sat down, just listening to him talk about how he sees the game was very similar to how I saw it in terms of what you needed to do to be able to defend offenses these days. And he had some really interesting perspective,” Macdonald explained. “So we felt like ‘shoot we got to get this guy here in person,’ brought him in and he did a great job. And it just kind of took off from there.”
Based on Macdonald’s previous comments in his introductory press conference, Durde likely won’t be calling plays on defense with the head coach maintaining that role, at least not initially. But his presence with a defensive line background puts the cherry on top for a staff that now includes Macdonald, former Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier, long-time NFL linebacker coach Kirk Olivadotti, and Scott.
As Macdonald indicated on Monday, Durde will be arriving in town early this week and he’s excited to get to work with him “building the staff out.” In addition, if Durde hasn’t already started, he will begin to connect with players he will be coaching next season such as veterans Jarran Reed and Dre’Mont Jones as well as prospective free agent Leonard Williams, who the Seahawks hope to re-sign after acquiring at the trade deadline in October.
With the dust starting to settle in the aftermath of an exhausting coaching search, Macdonald’s success will now be tied in part to Durde, one of his biggest swings in the hiring process given his lack of NFL or college defensive coordinator experience. Along with Frazier in an assistant head coach role, those three will be tasked with turning around a Seattle defense that struggled mightily in recent seasons, including finishing 24th in points allowed in 2023.
But considering the path Durde took to reach this point and how he has performed with every opportunity granted to him so far, Macdonald clearly has confidence in his ability to make a substantial impact combatting modern NFL offenses. Inheriting a defensive line with a good mix of experienced starters and young talent, his arrival will play a decisive role in whether the Seahawks can return to the league’s elite defensively and climb back into contention.
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