Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde has become the latest name to get left out of the NFL’s coaching conversation, and that’s a tough look for a coach who just helped guide the defending Super Bowl champions to the top of the league.
Two prominent NFL websites recently put together lists of the assistant coaches and former head coaches most likely to land head coaching jobs in 2027. Eighteen names showed up across those lists. Durde wasn’t one of them.
That omission stands out even more when you look at who did make the cut. Five teams had two names on the lists, including the Los Angeles Rams, Seattle’s biggest rivals.
That part at least tracks, since plenty of people around the league are chasing coaches who learned under Sean McVay. Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula and offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase both drew multiple head coaching interviews in the latest cycle.
Durde had interviews too, just not as many.
The strange part is that some of the other names getting buzz come from teams that missed the playoffs in 2025. Christian Parker, Klayton Adams, Declan Doyle, and Anthony Weaver all landed on the lists, and if they’re being treated like hot candidates, it’s fair to ask why Durde isn’t getting similar attention after presiding over Seattle’s Super Bowl-winning defense in 2025.
That’s where the broader theme around Seattle this offseason comes into focus. The Seahawks keep getting pushed to the side.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s Offensive Player of the Year award has been miscast. Seattle has been ranked behind Baltimore, Buffalo, and the Rams in Super Bowl odds.
The league, as the story goes, just doesn’t seem eager to put the Seahawks front and center.
In most cases, that kind of skepticism probably helps Mike Macdonald’s team. It keeps the edge sharp.
It keeps the noise down. But for Durde, the opposite is true.
If he wants to become a serious head coaching candidate, he needs his name circulating now. Public visibility matters.
That’s how interviews pile up, and that’s how top jobs eventually open.
The league had no problem celebrating Seattle offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak when he got the Raiders’ job this offseason. That move felt earned after Kubiak helped reshape the offense, which finished 8th in the league in total yards and 3rd in points. Seattle’s defense, meanwhile, finished sixth in yards and first in points.
There are a few possible reasons Durde keeps getting overlooked, and not all of them hold water.
He is an outsider in the most literal sense. He’s British, and his playing career and early coaching work came in Europe.
But he has spent more than a decade in the NFL, climbing from intern to Super Bowl-winning coordinator. That’s a real head coaching path, not some novelty story.
He is also black, which should not be a factor but plainly is one in a league where only three of the 32 coaches are black, even though more than 50 percent of the players are black.
The more practical concern may be temperament. Some teams want the loud, charismatic salesman type - the Dan Campbell or Jim Harbaugh mold.
Durde doesn’t project that way. Like Macdonald, he isn’t the kind of coach who is going to dominate commercials or spend all day working the room.
For some franchises, that matters.
The biggest hurdle may be the shadow cast by Macdonald himself. When Seattle’s offense took off under Kubiak, nobody had trouble seeing his impact because he was working on the opposite side of the ball from the head coach.
Durde’s challenge is different. People can look at Seattle’s defensive success and wonder how much belongs to the coordinator and how much belongs to the head coach.
That question hasn’t stopped other assistants from moving up. Over the last two seasons, several coordinators have landed head coaching jobs even while working under head coaches known for the same side of the ball. Ben Johnson, Kellen Moore, Brian Schottenheimer, and Mike LaFleur all got top jobs anyway.
Durde still has a case to make, and maybe the best person to make it would be DeMarcus Lawrence. Lawrence knows him from their time together in Dallas and has said they entered the league as rookies at the same time - one player, one coach. Lawrence also trusted Durde enough that it helped push him toward Seattle.
Durde interviewed with Cleveland and Atlanta last year, but those teams hired Todd Monken and Joe Brady instead. Other coaches on the recent prospect lists have racked up five or six interviews in the past year.
Some have never had a head coaching interview at all. Still, they were mentioned.
Durde wasn’t.
That’s the part that doesn’t sit right.
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