4 Seattle Seahawks on the hot seat entering 2023 training camp

Seahawks defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt

By most reports, Clint Hurtt is a well-respected coach who worked his way up the chain and eventually became an NFL defensive coordinator with the Seahawks in 2022. Prior to that, he was Seattle's defensive line coach under former DC Ken Norton. Under Norton, the Seahawks defense consistently underperformed compared to expectations and after four seasons on the job, he was fired.

In his first season as DC with Seattle, Hurtt faced a lot of issues that would have been difficult for even more seasoned DC. The Seahawks had young players or new additions in multiple places and Hurtt had to try to quickly mold the unit into a productive and cohesive one. Seattle eventually started three new cornerbacks, a new edge rusher, and a new linebacker in Week 1. Plus, while Jamal Adams was expected to be a big part of the scheme last year, he got hurt in the first game and missed the rest of the year.

But a couple of concerns happened with the defense early in the season. One is that it seemed to take Hurtt a few weeks to adjust to losing Adams. Adams is a unique safety who can be extremely disruptive to an opposing offense if he's healthy, but for Seattle to rely so much on Adams, who has list of injuries from recent seasons, was a mistake. The other problem was that while the defense was very good against the run in 2021 the group was suddenly extremely bad in 2022. Hurtt seemed to have no answer for it.

Now the defense has more overall talent than it did heading into last year. Hurtt should have the pieces in place for unit to take a gigantic step towards being actually good. But how he schemes and leads the group could go a ways toward determining if he is still the DC in 2024.