Report: Seahawks hire from within NFC West and hire Shane Waldron de Rams as offensive coordinator

To quote Jimi Jamison from the rock group Survivor, the search is over.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter released a news report on Friday night, and that has to do with the position of offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks. After a few weeks of speculation, excitement, fear, indifference and that worrying moment when Adam Gase’s name came up, the Seahawks are hiring the Los Angeles Rams to overtake game coordinator Shane Waldron to replace Brian Schottenheimer.

Waldron has been with Sean McVay since his days in Washington in 2016. When McVay was hired by the Rams, Waldron was initially the Los Angeles coach before taking on the role of passing game coordinator in 2018. He also held the title of Coach of defenders in 2019, before focusing only on the passing game again in 2020. Previously, he was an intern at the New England Patriots and worked with Bill Belichick as an offensive quality control coach and later as a tight ends coach in 2009.

The 41-year-old Portland, Oregon, native never called for plays in the NFL, but I suppose as an offensive coordinator he was calling for plays at the prestigious Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Massachusetts in 2011.

We know that while the Los Angeles Rams have been a team with many low pass passes in neutral game script situations under Sean McVay, they are big on moves and have led the league in play attempts over the past two seasons. Interestingly, the Seahawks had just 9 more passes in 2020 than in 2019, despite increasing Russell Wilson’s pass attempts by 42.

The rate of game-action is one thing, but the creativity of game-action concepts and getting Jared Goff out of his pocket is a different story and the Rams have consistently made this a staple of their attack throughout the McVay era.

And so, little by little, Waldron became the fourth OC of the Seahawks in the Pete Carroll era. Congratulations to him and I hope it is a great signing.