NFL Rumors: Cowboys' Aden Durde to Be Hired as Seahawks' DC Under Mike Macdonald

The Seattle Seahawks are hiring Aden Durde, formerly a defensive line coach for the Dallas Cowboys, as their next defensive coordinator, according to NFL Network's Tom Pelissero.

Durde's NFL coaching career began in 2018 with the Atlanta Falcons, where he became the first British coach in the league.

He worked as a defensive quality control coach and outside linebackers coach in Atlanta before heading to Dallas in 2021.

The London native previously spent six seasons as defensive coordinator for the BAFA National Leagues' London Warriors.

Durde, 44, will now join the staff of Mike Macdonald, who at 36 years old is the youngest head coach in the NFL.

Macdonald will still need to find an offensive coordinator, a hire that ESPN's Jeremy Fowler said "could happen this week."

Durde's career with the Seahawks ended on Jan. 14 with a 48-32 Wild Card loss to the Green Bay Packers. Cowboys team reporter Patrik Walker described Durde's reaction to his final loss with the team:

Cowboys players were overall left with good impressions of Durde, according to the Dallas Morning News' Calvin Watkins.

Durde spent five seasons as a linebacker for the Scottish Claymores and Hamburg Sea Devils of the now-defunct NFL Europe.

His only NFL exposure as a player was his work on practice squads for the Carolina Panthers in 2005 and the Kansas City Chiefs in 2008.

Durde's first shot at a position in the league came with a 2014 coaching internship under a diversity fellowship program run by the Cowboys. That internship eventually led to Durde's hiring by the Hawks.

Durde was also one of 40 attendees at the NFL's Coaching Accelerator program in 2023. The program's participants are chosen based on "their high potential to be considered for a head coach position in the future," according to the NFL.

The Cowboys assistant coach became a familiar name in the NFL after he was featured in a 2021 episode of HBO's Hard Knocks. During that episode, a reporter compared Durde's career journey from England to a coach in America to Ted Lasso, a show about an American becoming a coach in England.

Other than Ted Lasso comparisons, Durde's career journey also raises questions about the possibility that other coaches will be able to make it to the NFL coaching ranks after beginning their football careers overseas in the future.