NFL: Seattle Seahawks fire Jeremy Bates
Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll fired offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates on Tuesday, bringing an end to a dismal return for Bates in which he led the Seahawks to have one of the worst offences in the League.
Just hours after firing Bates, Carroll was out bringing new coaches to the team. He hired Tom Cable, recently fired Oakland Raiders’ head coach, as offensive line coach and assistant head coach. Cable was not optioned for another season by Raiders owner
Al Davis.
The Seahawks also announced Todd Wash leaving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as defensive line coach and will be joining the Raiders in the same position. Wash comes after Dan Quinn left the team to become defensive coordinator at the University of Florida.
The team also promoted Rocky Seto to assistant defensive backs and safeties coach while Kris Richard will take the defensive backs and cornerbacks coaching post. Both of them were on the Seahawks’ staff and will be taking over after Jerry Gray left to become
head coach at the University of Texas.
Seattle is still looking for a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. Carroll is to hold a news conference on Wednesday discussing the end of 2010 season and preparations for the next one.
A source said that the team was interested in acquiring former Denver Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels as an offensive coordinator but he was picked up by the St. Louis Rams for the same position on Tuesday.
Another candidate for offensive coordinator is Jim Zorn, quarterbacks coach for the Baltimore Ravens.
Bates was fired after leading the Seahawks’ offence to finish 28th in the league. They did show some improvement in their 41-36 playoff win against the New Orleans Saints but reverted to their original selves, losing 24-35 to the Chicago Bears.
If quarterback Matt Hasselbeck decides to come back to the Seahawks in 2011, since he is an unrestricted free agent, he will start his fourth year as offensive coordinator.
Wash has had four seasons with the Bucs, three of which were as defensive line coach. He played at North Dakota State along with Seahawks defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and coached North Dakota as well.
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