Now four--five?--teams want to interview Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak for head coach

Klint Kubiak is this year’s “it” candidate on the NFL’s coaching carousel.

The NFC West-champion Seahawks as of Tuesday afternoon had gotten interview requests from four of the seven teams NFL with head-coaching vacancies to talk to Kubiak.

The 38-year-old assistant is the coordinator and play caller for a Seattle offense that just set a franchise record scoring points.

The division-rival Arizona Cardinals plus the New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons and Las Vegas Raiders have asked the Seahawks for permission to interview Kubiak.

The Falcons’ interest became known Monday, when Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said NFL teams had started asking to talk to the 38-year-old Kubiak.

The Cardinals’, Giants’ and Raiders’ interest was first reported Tuesday by Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer.

Kubiak is seen around the league as the top candidate with an offensive background, amid recently fired and experienced head coaches with defensive pedigrees. In that way, Kubiak is this year’s Ben Johnson.

Johnson, then also 38, was the highly successful offensive coordinator last season with the Detroit Lions, the top seed in the NFC. Johnson eventually became the new, first-time head coach of the Chicago Bears last offseason. The Bears just won Detroit’s NFC North this season.

The Baltimore Ravens could be the next team interested to talk to Kubiak. The team Macdonald was defensive coordinator for until Seattle hired him in February 2024 decided on Tuesday to fire John Harbaugh. Harbaugh is Macdonald’s mentor. The defense-first Harbaugh was the Ravens’ coach for 18 years, ending with Baltimore’s last-play loss at Pittsburgh Sunday night in the AFC North title game.

Kubiak has ties to Baltimore, that franchise and how the Ravens have played for decades. He is integral to Macdonald’s Seahawks program, which is an evolution and extension of the system and ways the 38-year-old Macdonald learned under Harbaugh for 10 years in Baltimore, until January 2024. The Ravens’ roster is built to run. Lead back Derrick Henry was second in the NFL this season with 1,595 yards.

In his offensive system, Kubiak runs the ball “first and foremost,” as Seahawks Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold kept saying this season. That’s why Macdonald hired him last offseason. Only two other teams ran the ball at a higher rate this season than Seattle’s 50%: Buffalo (50.6%) and Baltimore (52.1%). Even when the yards didn’t come earlier this Seahawks season, Kubiak kept calling runs. He complimented those with Darnold’s deep-strike passes to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the NFL’s leader with 1,793 yards receiving this season.

Kubiak’s father Gary was the Ravens’ offensive coordinator in 2014.

What’s next for Kubiak

Those wanting to interview Kubiak need to act quickly, or must wait.

NFL rules state teams can conduct virtual head-coach interviews, each a maximum of three hours, with candidates on the top seeds with byes this playoff week. Those interviews must begin no earlier than three days following that top seed’s final regular-season game.

For the top-seeded Seahawks, Kubiak’s window to interview began Tuesday and runs through this weekend. In-person interviews with candidates for head-coaching jobs can begin Jan. 19 — unless the team the candidate coaches is still in the playoffs.

If the Seahawks win their divisional round game at Lumen Field (likely Jan. 17), teams cannot interview Kubiak again until Jan. 26. That’s the start of the bye week between the NFC conference championship game and the Super Bowl Feb. 8.

If the Seahawks lose in the divisional round, teams can resume (or begin) interviewing Kubiak beginning Jan. 19.

Macdonald said Monday he supports and encourages Kubiak to seek his the first head-coaching position in his coaching career that began in 2010 as an offensive quality-control coach in college football at Texas A&M. He began his NFL coaching career in 2013 as an offensive quality-control coach with the Minnesota Vikings.

He’s been the Vikings quarterbacks coach (2019-20) and offensive coordinator (2021), the Denver Broncos pass-game coordinator and QBs coach (2022), the San Francisco 49ers pass-game coordinator (2023) and the New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator (2024) before Macdonald hired him to Seattle.

“It’s a little bittersweet, to a certain degree, that you might lose a great coach and a great person from your team,” Macdonald said Monday. “But not enough to stymie their process.

“We definitely encourage...if it’s a great opportunity for (him).”