New Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt is happy knowing that he was able to get former Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Sean Desai to be a part of his coaching staff.
Hurtt and Desai spent three seasons as colleagues with the Chicago Bears from 2014-16. Hurtt was the Bears assistant defensive line coach and then outside linebacker coach under coordinator Vic Fangio while Desai served as a quality control coach. That shared experience and relationship made Desai someone Hurtt eagerly hoped would come join him in Seattle.
“If you’re a secondary coach and you become a coordinator, then you’ll need a really strong D-line coach. You want someone who’s really strong and that, you know, on the other side or the back-end or front-end, that’s opposite of you, and working that out. And because of Sean, I worked with him for three years in Chicago, so we already had a great relationship. We always spoke all the time. So when the opportunity came for us to have him with us, it was a no-brainer,” Hurtt said.
“When you’re in a position of leadership, great leaders understand how to be able to delegate and trust those that you’re working with to help you put things together for ultimate success. So to be able to get him here was a home run. So I appreciate Pete [Carroll] and John [Schneider] getting that done.”
Hurtt left the Bears to become the Seahawks’ defensive line coach in 2017. Desai then progressed into a role as a safeties coach in Chicago before getting the coordinator job last year. Desai signed on to be the Seahawks’ associate head coach/defense with Hurtt handling the coordinator role in place of Ken Norton Jr., who was fired after the season.
Hurtt wants to install move principles from Fangio’s 3-4 scheme into Seattle’s defensive effort. Desai’s familiarity with that defense should be beneficial to Hurtt’s plans.
“He’s a sharp guy. He definitely sees things differently in terms of how you’re going to handle route pickups, any type of run-pass conflict issues that you can have. Whether it be a safety or (inside linebacker), things that can help that player out to make his job easier. He’s really good with that and just seeing the different ways that offenses are trying to attack you,” Hurtt said.
“I know how much Vic leaned on him when we were there in that role. You know, sometimes everyone looks at like a quality control position, which he was in for the longest time as being a lower-tier position, but those are really the guys that you lean on a lot and that’s where Sean was so special, that you knew he obviously had a bright future in front of him when he got his opportunity.”
Hurtt is comfortable with Desai and knows he can rely on him and his observations during games to help put them in a position to succeed.
“Just somebody that I can go to and say, OK, during the course of the game, ‘it feels like this is what they’re doing to attack us in slot formations and X, Y and Z’ and then he could come back and say, ‘OK, this might be a really good idea.’ You know, somebody I can trust and try to bounce stuff off of coverage-wise when there can be an issue in the pass game. He’s really good with that, clear communicator, sees the game really, really well. There’s a lot of guys who are good coaches that don’t see the field when things are going on within the game. That’s something that he was outstanding at in our time together in Chicago,” Hurtt said.
