The Seattle Seahawks have found their new offensive coordinator. As first reported by ESPN's Adam Schefter, the team is expected to hire Brian Schottenheimer as its replacement for Darrell Bevell, who was fired earlier this week after seven seasons with the team.
Here are four things to know about Schottenheimer:
1. His background is in the "Air Coryell" offense, named for Don Coryell, the innovative coach of the San Diego Chargers from 1978 to 1986. Hallmarks of the system are a healthy dose of vertical routes in the passing game and a power running game. That would be a departure from what Seattle used under Bevell and offensive line coach Tom Cable. Bevell's background is in the West Coast offense, and Cable, who coordinated Seattle's running game, ran a zone-blocking scheme.
2. Schottenheimer's first stint as an NFL offensive coordinator was with the Jets (2006-11) under Eric Mangini and then Rex Ryan, defensive-minded coaches who liked to run the ball. The same was true in his second O-coordinator stint, which was with the St. Louis Rams (2012-14) under Jeff Fisher. In that sense, he's entering a familiar situation in Seattle with Pete Carroll. The Seahawks have put more on Russell Wilson's plate over the years, particularly this past season due to the lack of a running game. But Carroll wants to run the ball. It's in his DNA. Under Schottenheimer, the Jets ranked between first and ninth in rushing from 2008 to 2010 and were between 19th and 22nd in his other three seasons. The Rams were 19th, 19th and 20th in rushing under Schottenheimer.
3. Wilson will be the best quarterback Schottenheimer has worked with in a while, at least in the coordinator role. He's been a position coach for Drew Brees and Andrew Luck but hasn't been as fortunate with the quarterbacks he has had as an offensive coordinator. That list does include Brett Favre, but that was for only one season -- 2008 -- and it came under some challenging circumstances, with the Jets having to scrap their planned offense at the last minute to tailor it to Favre once he was acquired in August.
Schottenheimer's other starting QBs with the Jets were Chad Pennington, Kellen Clemens and Mark Sanchez. While Schottenheimer was with the Rams, Sam Bradford missed 25 games because of two ACL tears, forcing Clemens and Austin Davis -- Seattle's 2017 backup -- into the starting lineup. That list of names should be considered as context, as those offenses generally did not produce impressive results under Schottenheimer's direction.
4. Schottenheimer, the son of longtime NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer, was a quarterback in his playing days. He began his college career at Kansas before transferring to Florida, where he served as a backup to Danny Wuerffel from 1994 to 1996 (his stats in limited action weren't bad: 20 games, 25-of-40 passing for 290 yards, two touchdown, no interceptions and a 139.9 rating). He has said before that he realized he wanted to get into coaching when he was a freshman in college and that he had that in mind when he transferred from Kansas.
"I knew I wasn't a good enough player to play at the next level," he told the Colts' website. "I decided to go transfer some place where I knew I could learn from a strong passing-minded coach. That's why I chose Coach [Steve] Spurrier down at Florida."