The search is over.
The Seahawks announced Sunday night during the NFL’s conference championship games they have hired 37-year-old Klint Kubiak as their new offensive coordinator. So ends the search that began Jan. 6, the day coach Mike Macdonald fired Ryan Grubb after his only season calling Seattle’s plays.
Unlike his predecessor, Kubiak has been the offensive coordinator in the NFL before. He was that for the Minnesota Vikings in 2021, and this past, 2024 season for the New Orleans Saints.
In both of those previous play-calling jobs, Kubiak was what he just became again Sunday night: an offensive coordinator for a defense-first head coach.
Kubiak is known for outside zone-read rushing offense. He’s also known for three- and sometimes two-receiver pass plays with maximum protection for quarterbacks, including blocking by running backs.
Kubiak is the son of former NFL head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterback Gary Kubiak. Through his dad, Klint Kubiak is a member of the original Shanahan coaching tree of former Denver Broncos Super Bowl-winning coach Mike Shanahan.
Kubiak obviously convinced Macdonald he was the man to carry out what the Seahawks’ head man said he wants his offense to be in 2025 and beyond.
“We want our offense to be a physical unit and dictate terms of the defense,” Macdonald said the day after he fired Grubb. “(We want to) play complementary football and get the ball to our playmakers frequently and in space, and let our quarterback play fast.”
Macdonald is the NFL’s youngest head coach. Seattle’s defensive play-caller and now the team’s new offensive play-caller for quarterback Geno Smith’s offense are both 37 years old.
The next question for Kubiak, Macdonald and the Seahawks: Will they keep offensive line coach Scott Huff, the former University of Washington line coach who just finished his first season coaching in the NFL?
Macdonald said at the start of the OC search he was going to give the new play-caller the authority and latitude to bring his own assistant and position coaches with him to Seattle.
“When you decide to bring in a new coordinator, there’s probably going to be some movement with it,” Macdonald said Jan. 7, two days after Seattle’s season ended without a playoff appearance for a second straight year.
“We want our new coordinator to feel like they have a lot of influence in their staff, so we might have some movement when that happens and we might not. So we will kind of go through the process and figure it out as we go.”
Kubiak played college football at Colorado State. He was team captain in 2009.
He began his coaching career the following year, as a quality-control assistant on offense for Texas A&M.
His first NFL job was as a quality-control assistant for the Vikings in 2013 and ‘14. In 2016 he began as an offensive assistant for his dad, Gary Kubiak’s Denver Broncos. The Vikings hired him as their quarterbacks coach in 2019.
Minnesota promoted him two years later to offensive coordinator, under defensive-minded head coach Mike Zimmer. In Kubiak’s 2021 season as play-caller, the Vikings rushed for 100 yards 11 times in 17 games. That included 242 yards while beating Pittsburgh, and 140 yards rushing in a win over the Seahawks in week three. Kubiak’s Minnesota offense finished that season in the league’s top 12 overall, 11th in passing, 17th in rushing and 14th in scoring.
Kubiak spent 2022 back with the Broncos, as their quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator. He earned play-calling duties late that season. In 2023 he was Kyle Shanahan’s passing-game coordinator for the 49ers. San Francisco rookie quarterback Brock Purdy made the Pro Bowl as the last player taken in that year’s draft. Purdy excelled in Kubiak’s pass game that season with an NFL-best passer rating of 113.0.
This past season Kubiak was the play-caller for Dennis Allen, the Saints’ defense-first head man. New Orleans scored more than 40 points in each of its first two games, and Kubiak’s offense was getting hailed in September as the league’s hottest unit. Running back Alvin Kamara rushed for at least 117 yards in seven of their 12 games. They romped for 214 yards against Cleveland, 197 against Carolina, 190 against Dallas and 147 against the NFC West-champion Rams.
Kubiak’s 2024 Saints then sank with injuries to starting quarterback Derek Carr and Kamara. New Orleans failed to score more than 19 points in any of its final six games, and the Saints fired coach Dennis Allen. That is why Kubiak was interviewing for a new job.
He was one of three coaches known to interview twice for the Seahawks’ OC job in the last week and a half. Detroit Lions offensive line coach Hank Fraley and Vikings assistant offensive coordinator Grant Udinski were the others.
The Lions promoted Fraley on Friday to run-game coordinator and gave him a raise to stay in Detroit.
Udinski has gotten interviews with the Seahawks, New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for OC jobs.
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