Seahawks Courting Doug Pederson, Anthony Lynn For Offensive Coordinator Job
Following the decision to part ways with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer earlier this week, the Seahawks already have zeroed in on two prominent former NFL head coaches as potential replacements.
As originally reported by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network and confirmed by the Seahawk Maven, Seattle recently touched base with former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson to gauge his potential interest in the position. On Friday, per Josina Anderson, former Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn has also been contacted by the organization.
Interestingly, both Peterson and Lynn have prior backgrounds in the West Coast offense, which would be a departure from the Air Coryell principles Schottenheimer brought to the Seahawks when hired in 2018. Peterson ran Mike Holmgren's West Coast offense as a quarterback with the Packers, while Lynn spent most of his playing career in Mike Shanahan's zone-heavy, play action-oriented West Coast variant as a running back with the Broncos.
Pederson, 52, recently was fired by the Eagles despite leading the franchise to their first and only Super Bowl victory in 2017. He finished his five-year tenure in Philadelphia with a 42-37 record, leading the team to the postseason three times and compiling a 4-2 record in the playoffs.
Before accepting his first head coaching job, Pederson developed a sterling reputation for his work with quarterbacks, helping Michael Vick resurrect his career with the Eagles serving as a quarterback coach under Andy Reid in 2011/2012. When Reid took over as the Chiefs coach in 2013, Pederson followed him as offensive coordinator, helping Alex Smith throw for over 10,000 yards and 61 touchdowns in three seasons at the position.
Prior to coaching, after going undrafted out of Northeast Louisiana, Pederson served as an NFL backup for 12 seasons, including a pair of stints behind Brett Favre in Green Bay. He also played for Miami, Cleveland, and Philadelphia along with a stint in NFL Europe with the Rhein Fire.
Pederson, a native of Ferndale, Washington, grew up as a Seahawks fan and his family at one time had season tickets. Given his local ties, if he is content with returning to the league as a coordinator rather than a head coach and would be willing to work under Carroll, coming back to the Pacific Northwest to team up with quarterback Russell Wilson could be a great fit for both parties.
As for Lynn, like Pederson, he recently was fired by the Chargers after the team stumbled to a 7-9 record and missed the postseason for the second straight season. He wrapped up his four-year tenure in Los Angeles with a 33-31 overall record and led the team to one postseason appearance in 2018.
Following a six-year NFL career featuring stints with the Broncos and 49ers as a running back, Lynn quickly jumped into coaching as a special teams assistant with the Broncos in 2000. He served as a running backs coach for four different teams over the next six seasons before being promoted to assistant head coach with the Jets in 2013.
Following Rex Ryan to the Bills, Lynn kept the title of assistant head coach and running backs coach before replacing Ryan as the interim head coach and offensive coordinator with one game remaining in the 2016 season.
Considering Lynn's running back background, Carroll may want to give him a close look after reiterating numerous times in his season-closing press conference that the Seahawks needed to run the ball more and more effectively. With that said, he offers minimal play calling experience and his Chargers teams struggled running the ball during his time on the sidelines, failing to finish better than 15th in rushing yards per game in any of those four seasons.
There's still plenty of time for the Seahawks to pursue other options in coming days, but at this moment, Carroll seems inclined to bring in an experienced coach with a West Coast background and both Pederson and Lynn could be prime candidates if interested.
