Why you should wish Klint Kubiak good luck on his interviews

The history of OC changes on Defensive teams is less significant than you're imagining

If the Seahawks lose Klint Kubiak to a head coaching position this year, which they probably will (he’s a top candidate in a large pool of openings), an ideal candidate to replace him would be former Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski and not just because they’ve probably been confused for one another a lot.

Kubiak was Stefanski’s quarterbacks coach when they both worked for Mike Zimmer’s Vikings in 2019.

But who Seattle might replace Kubiak with is a little less relevant today than a question we can answer: What is the history of defensive-minded head coaches losing offensive coordinators to promotions?

In my research, I found that Stefanski was actually one in a small bunch of recent and relevant examples.

Kevin Stefanski→ Klint Kubiak—>Kevin Stefanski?

Stefanski was hired by Brad Childress in 2006 and survived two coaching changes until Zimmer promoted him to OC in 2019, his fourteenth season on the Vikings.

Like Dave Canales spending 13 seasons under Pete Carroll without an OC opportunity, Stefanski’s road to being a coordinator was much longer than the wait to become a head coach.

Minnesota finished sixth in points per drive in 2019 and beat the Saints in the wild card round (no, not that Vikings playoff win over the Saints).

Stefanski’s ranks as OC:

• 8th in scoring

• 5th in Net yards per pass

• 12th in YPC

• 10th in yards per drive

• 9th on third down

• 10th in the red zone

But the Vikings lost 27-10 to the 49ers in the divisional round. Stefanski left to become the head coach of the Browns in 2020 and Zimmer replaced him as OC with Gary Kubiak, four years after he stepped down as head coach of the Broncos.

Gary Kubiak’s ranks as OC in 2020:

• 11th in scoring

• 6th in NY/pass

• 4th in YPC

• 10th in points per drive

• 7th in yards per drive

• 16th on third down

• 6th in the red zone

If anything, Minnesota’s offense improved when Zimmer had to find a replacement for Stefanski and many players had played in both offenses, with the exception of trading Stefon Diggs and drafting Justin Jefferson.

On the downside, the Vikings went 7-9 but mostly because of a DEFENSIVE collapse on Zimmer’s side of the ball, who had a little nepotism of his own going on with Adam Zimmer serving as co-defensive coordinator. Fittingly when Gary Kubiak announced another retirement in 2021, Zimmer promoted Klint to offensive coordinator as his replacement.

(Irrelevant to this post’s topic but interesting: Other people on Kubiak’s staff that year included QBs coach Andrew Janocko, RBs coach Kennedy Polamalu, and advisor Rick Dennison. All are also on the Seahawks staff, although Polamalu took a leave of absence.)

Minnesota’s offense showed a little less punch under Klint Kubiak in 2021 even though Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, and Dalvin Cook were all still very productive. However, Zimmer and his entire staff were let go, two seasons after Stefanski was hired by the Browns…which seems irrelevant because the Vikings problems were CLEARLY on defense.

Perhaps then a more relevant example would be the 2017 Vikings. (Yes, the team that did have that playoff game against the Saints.)

The Vikings had the number one ranked defense (points and yards and third downs) that season paired with a respectable offense surprisingly led by Case Keenum. The rewarded party in that situation was not defensive coordinator George Edwards and the top-ranked defense (sorry Aden Durde, although he has been requested by the Browns to interview as Stefanski’s replacement which is in itself another reason to say “sorry”) but offensive coordinator Pat Shurmer.

Shurmer had one head coaching job prior to his role on the Vikings, which was of course in Cleveland.

The Vikings went 13-3 and won a playoff game prior to losing Shurmur to another short-lived, 23-losses-in-2-years stint as a head coach on the Giants.

But aside from one shaky 2018 season with John DeFilippo as the offensive coordinator, Minnesota survived the loss of Shurmur just fine and they were able to land Stefanski, G Kubiak, and K Kubiak.

In fact, Zimmer went through 5 OC changes in 7 years and although he did get fired without reaching the Super Bowl (he had one NFC Championship appearance, an ugly 38-7 loss to the Eagles) it’s not because of losing offensive coordinators; Minnesota’s OCs were leaving for promotions or retiring more often than they were being fired.

If you have good offensive players in place, then only a BAD offensive coordinator can ruin that and the last thing that an opening on the Seahawks staff should attract right now after a promotion is a bad play caller.

Any offensive play caller who is demand will see that the reason Kubiak is so popular is that he’s on a team that won a lot of games and wasn’t under as much pressure to score 30 points because the Seahawks have the number one defense. Plus, that coach should have total autonomy on offensive decisions like Kubiak did, another reason to think Stefanski might favor that opportunity if he doesn’t take a head coaching gig in 2026.

Did Zimmer OC losses hurt?

Not exactly. The Vikings lost Shurmur and two years later they had Stefanski. They lost Stefanski and the very next year they scored more points with Gary Kubiak. Then Kubiak retired and his son didn’t do any worse than Gary might have done if he had returned.

Plus, the Seahawks aren’t dumb:

They’ve been planning to potentially replace Kubiak after one season since they hired Kubiak. That’s part of what made him an easy choice to replace Ryan Grubb…they didn’t want someone who wouldn’t be in demand.

Bowles’ Movements

Dave Canales, Liam Coen

Todd Bowles fired Byron Leftwich in 2023 and hired Canales, a first-time offensive coordinator who wasn’t on much of anyone’s radar at the time.

Canales was given a lot of credit for the improvement of Baker Mayfield and therefore was hired by the Panthers to do the same for Bryce Young. Disastrous situation for the Bucs?

They hired Liam Coen, another pretty off-the-wall candidate (and had prior experience with Mayfield) and they improved from 20th in scoring to 4th.

Doesn’t seem that frightening.

Yes, 2025 OC Josh Grizzard has not been as successful and has become a scapegoat for Tampa’s problems—but is that fair? A “defensive-minded head coach” who hasn’t had a single great defensive season in four years at the helm.

The Bucs were 32nd in red zone defense this year. They haven’t finished higher than 18th in yards allowed since 2022.

If Mike Macdonald’s defense collapses, that’s a much bigger problem than who Seattle’s offensive coordinator is in a year or two years or three years.

A little less Daboll do ya

Brian Daboll

A longtime Belichick guy, Daboll was hired by defensive-minded Sean McDermott to develop rookie Josh Allen on the 2018 Bills. The offense improved from 30th in 2018 to eventually a top-3 scoring team in both 2020 and 2021 as Allen became a perennial MVP candidate.

Well, maybe the perennial MVP candidate is what matters:

• 2021 3rd in scoring (Daboll’s last season in Buffalo)

• 2022 2nd in scoring

• 2023 6th in scoring

• 2024 2nd in scoring

• 2025 4th in scoring

Daboll essentially had nothing I would define as “offensive success” with the Giants. The Bills have actually won more games since Daboll left and that’s in spite of firing an offensive coordinator (Ken Dorsey) in that stretch.

Vrb-ate ‘em

Arthur Smith

Mike Vrabel’s OC in 2019-2020 was praised for raising the dead out of Ryan Tannehill and reaching the AFC Championship once. Smith was hired by the Falcons in 2021, but the Titans still won the division and 12 games after he left when Todd Downing as the OC in 2022.

Tennessee certainly would have benefited more from having Arthur Smith than Downing or Tim Kelly (2023) but clearly there was nothing that could save Tannehill’s decline or the massive talent exodus that the Titans went through prior to prematurely firing Vrabel.

The Titans haven’t had a number one defense since 2000.

The Patriots’ Weis

Charlie Weis, Josh McDaniels, Bill O’Brien

Bill Belichick has never had that much respect for OCs, at times not even having an official offensive coordinator when he was running the Patriots but still winning 12+ games every year. Well, maybe this is only relevant if your quarterback is Tom Brady.

Even so, many assistant coaches came and went without it changing the consistency of New England’s success. Technically, Belichick won three Super Bowls before McDaniels and three Super Bowls after McDaniels left for the Broncos (it’s just that McDaniels returned and was the OC of those last three wins).

Offensive play caller coaches that left offensive coaches

Ben Johnson, Lions→Bears

The most famous example right now, Johnson finally took a job after turning teams down for the previous two offseasons. The Lions dropped from 1st in points to 4th in points. I’m not saying the offense is as good (and Dan Campbell just fired the OC this week) but it wasn’t the offensive collapse that many predicted.

Shane Steichen, Eagles→Colts

Kellen Moore, Eagles→Saints

Nick Sirianni had to replace both coordinators in 2023 and he ended up firing both replacements (Brian Johnson, Sean Desai) which only further emphasizes that losing good assistant coaches isn’t the end of the world: In 2024, the Eagles picked up Moore and Vic Fangio and won the Super Bowl.

The coordinator changes just don’t seem to have nearly as much of an impact as when a team loses a quarterback or parts ways with a head coach.

If the Seahawks lose Kubiak then who they replace him with is important. But the impact of that one change won’t have nearly as much importance as the consistency of the coaches and players who are staying the same. Give Sam Darnold time to throw, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and a top-5 defense and the rest should just fall into place.

Seaside Joe 2501