For the fourth time in franchise history, the Seattle Seahawks are playing in the NFC Championship Game.
The last time the Seahawks were on the doorstep of a Super Bowl berth was the 2014 season, amidst the greatest run in franchise history. Seattle was defending its Super Bowl 48 championship from the year prior, once again boasting the league’s No. 1 defense in points allowed. This was the peak of the Legion of Boom era, with Pete Carroll overseeing a terrorizing unit that finished first in the NFC
for the second straight year.
A few other notable names from the Seahawks’ 2014 coaching staff include future NFL head coaches Dan Quinn (defensive coordinator), Dave Canales (wide receivers), and two-time interim coach Darrell Bevell (offensive coordinator). All three were present for the team’s championship run in 2013, helping to maintain a degree of stability within Seattle’s coaching ranks for the ensuing title defense.
While we are on the topic of 2014, let’s dive into where some of the core members of the 2025 Seahawks coaching staff were 11 years ago and how they got to where they are now.
Mike Macdonald
Currently the second youngest head coach at 38 years of age, Mike Macdonald was just 27 in 2014. At the time, Macdonald had just ended a three-year stint with his alma mater, spending some time on Mark Richt’s staff at the University of Georgia. Thus, 2014 marked the start of Macdonald’s NFL coaching career, serving under John Harbaugh as an intern for the Baltimore Ravens. That year, the Ravens were one win away from the conference title game, blowing a two-score lead against the eventual champion New England Patriots in the Divisional Round.
Over the next several years, Macdonald was a defensive assistant under coordinators Dean Pees (2015-17) and Wink Martindale (2018-20), working as a defensive backs coach for a time before switching to linebackers under Martindale. Macdonald left Baltimore in 2021, joining his head coach’s younger brother at the University of Michigan as the program’s defensive coordinator. While in Ann Arbor, Macdonald oversaw a Wolverines unit that finished eighth out of 130 FBS schools in points allowed, helping Michigan to the No. 2 spot in the College Football Playoff.
Macdonald returned to the Ravens for two more seasons, succeeding Martindale as DC. In 2023, Macdonald’s defense allowed the fewest points by any team, which guided Baltimore to a 13-4 finish and an AFC Championship appearance, causing a multitude of Ravens fans to wonder why the team let him go at season’s end.
Klint Kubiak
Like Macdonald, Klint Kubiak was also in the midst of his first job as an NFL coach in 2014. Also 27 at the time, Kubiak had recently spent three years as an assistant at Texas A&M, working towards his master’s degree as the school was leaving the Big 12 for the SEC.
In 2013, Kubiak was hired by the Minnesota Vikings as an offensive quality control coach under OC Bill Musgrave. After a 5-10-1 finish, Minnesota cleaned house, firing Musgrave and head coach Leslie Frazier in the process. Their respective successors, Norv Turner and Mike Zimmer, retained Kubiak despite the organizational restructuring, keeping him in the same position he held the year before.
The Vikings marginally improved in 2014, going 7-9 and jumping to third place in the NFC North. That being said, there was still a lot of work to be done, as Minnesota’s offense ranked 20th in points scored, averaging just 20.3 points/game.
In 2015, Kubiak left Minneapolis to join the University of Kansas as the program’s wide receivers coach. Kansas, an institution that is not known for its prowess in football, had the worst campaign in program history, finishing 0-12 on the year. The Jayhawks’ receiving corps, which included 2025 Seahawks legend Steven Sims Jr., had just three wideouts finish with at least 30 receptions, while only one surpassed 400 yards and two receiving scores.
Kubiak left Kansas after just one year, returning to the pros to join his father Gary in Denver. The Broncos entered 2016 as the defending champions, adding the younger Kubiak as an offensive assistant. Gary and Klint stuck together for the next several years, departing the Mile High City for Minneapolis in 2019. The elder Kubiak served as the Vikings’ offensive coordinator for the next two seasons, with his son succeeding him as OC upon his retirement in 2021.
With Zimmer out as Minnesota’s head coach, Kubiak went back to Denver for 2022, working alongside Russell Wilson as the Broncos’ passing game coordinator and QBs coach. A year later, Kubiak traveled west to San Francisco, serving in the same position with the 49ers for 2023 before getting his second offensive coordinator job with the New Orleans Saints.
Aden Durde
A native of England, Aden Durde played for various teams over in NFL Europe for several years before turning to coaching in 2011. Seeing as the NFL’s European league ceased operations in 2007, Durde had to look for other options nearby.
In 2014, Durde was in his fourth season as the defensive coordinator for the London Warriors of the BAFA National Leagues, the top British American football organization. That same year, Durde migrated to the NFL, working for the Dallas Cowboys as a coaching intern for two seasons. In 2016, Durde joined the Atlanta Falcons via the Bill Walsh diversity coaching fellowship, uniting with former Seahawks DC Dan Quinn in the process.
Two years later, Durde was elevated to a full-time position on the Falcons’ defensive staff, becoming the first full-time British NFL coach in league history. Durde became Atlanta’s linebackers coach in 2020, where he remained for one more year before following Quinn back to Dallas for 2021.
Following three years as the Cowboys’ defensive line coach, Durde became the NFL’s first-ever British defensive coordinator upon being hired by Seattle in 2024. Durde has been instrumental in helping to form the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program, allowing an opening for players and coaches like himself to join the league from overseas.
Rick Dennison
At 67 years of age, Seahawks run game coordinator Rick Dennison has a wealth of coaching experience under his belt. Following eight seasons as a linebacker for the Denver Broncos, Dennison returned to the team as an offensive assistant for 1995. There, he served in various roles on Mike Shanahan’s coaching staff over the next 14 years, eventually departing for Houston to be Gary Kubiak’s offensive coordinator from 2010 to 2013.
In 2014, Dennison worked as John Harbaugh’s quarterbacks coach in Baltimore, where he helped Joe Flacco achieve one of his best passing seasons of his career. At age 29, Flacco threw for 3,986 yards and 27 touchdowns, both of which were personal highs at the time.
Dennison got his second OC gig in 2015, reuniting with Kubiak and the Broncos en route to a championship in Super Bowl 50. After another season in Denver, Dennison was hired as the Buffalo Bills’ offensive coordinator, joining first-year head coach Sean McDermott for 2017. Under Dennison, Buffalo’s run game finished sixth in rushing yards, aiding the team in qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in 18 years.
Following one year with the New York Jets, Dennison joined the Kubiaks in Minnesota, where he served as a senior assistant on Klint Kubiak’s staff in 2021. Appearing in a similar role for New Orleans in 2024, Dennison joined Kubiak in Seattle for 2025.
Leslie Frazier
Currently the Seahawks’ assistant head coach, Leslie Frazier was in a bit of a rough spot in 2014. That 2012 playoff berth with the Minnesota Vikings felt like it was far in the rearview mirror despite happening just two years prior.
Upon being fired by the Vikings after a disastrous 2013 season, Frazier was hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as Lovie Smith’s defensive coordinator. This arrangement lasted just two years, as the Buccaneers finished a combined 8-24 between 2014 and 2015. During this time, Frazier’s defense finished near the bottom of the league in points allowed in both years, ranking no better than the NFL’s eighth-worst team in points against.
After a year as the Ravens’ secondary coach, Frazier joined Rick Dennison in Buffalo as the Bills’ DC. Under Frazier, Buffalo’s defense rose from around the middle of the pack in 2017 to one of the league’s best in 2019, ending the year second in points allowed and third in yards against. Buffalo’s defense reverted back to middling in 2020, but finished as the top-ranked unit in 2021.
Frazier’s squad held steady in 2022, as the Bills ranked second in points against and sixth in yards allowed. Disappointing playoff exits notwithstanding, Frazier’s coaching career got back on track in Buffalo. After a year off in 2023, Frazier returned to coaching as Macdonald’s AHC in Seattle for 2024.
Justin Outten
Eleven years ago, Seahawks run game specialist and assistant o-line coach Justin Outten was 31 coaching high school football.
At the time, Outten was working at Westfield High School in Harris County, Texas, initially being hired as the school’s offensive line coach. Between 2008 and 2015, Outten had been the team’s o-line coach, offensive coordinator, and assistant head coach.
In 2016, Outten joined the Atlanta Falcons as an intern on Dan Quinn’s coaching staff. Outten spent the next two years as an offensive assistant in Atlanta before joining Matt LaFleur in Green Bay as the Packers’ tight ends coach for 2019. That year, former Seahawk Jimmy Graham was Green Bay’s best receiving tight end, finishing with 447 yards and three touchdowns at the age of 33.
In 2022, Outten followed former Packers OC Nathaniel Hackett to Denver, where Outten worked as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator. Working with Russell Wilson under center, Outten’s offense ranked dead last, managing more than 20 points just six times over 17 games. In his age-34 season, Wilson threw for just 16 TDs, tied for his career worst among seasons in which he made at least 10 starts. Denver’s Monday night loss to Seattle in Week 1 would be a harbinger of things to come, as the Broncos won just five of their next 16 games to end 2022 at 5-12.
Following a catastrophic stop in Denver, Outten made his way to the Tennessee Titans, serving in various roles on the team’s offensive staff between 2023 and 2024. Upon being hired by the Seahawks for 2025, Outten was paired alongside fellow former Broncos OC Rick Dennison as Seattle’s run game specialist.
Careers often have long, winding paths, taking unexpected stops along the way. Some may be successful, while others are rather unremarkable. Whatever the case may be, there is always a reason why you end up in a specific place, the place you are meant to be in.
Hopefully you learned a thing or two about the Seahawks’ coaching staff, because I sure did.
