Alex Gibbs reportedly coming to Seattle

[biju]

I don't want to get my hopes up quite yet as I don't think anything official has been annouced. Basically I had extremely high hopes that Mike Solari would be retained as he's done nothing short of miracles holding our O-line together through two years of injuries. What I meant to say was "I hope Mike Solari is retained unless, of course, we can get our hands on Alex Gibbs."

Gibbs is nothing short of an offensive line genius. Zone blocking? His idea. From 1995 - 2003 Denver had the (cumulatively speaking) best rushing attack. That changed when Atlanta took over from 2004 - 2006, when Alex Gibbs was hired there. His most recent endeavor has been with Houston to which he's been up and down (they were up in 2008, and back down in 2009).

Again, I don't want to get too excited, but this could be huge.

[Nfl Fan]

Yeah, I heard that earlier too. Between that and the Pete Carroll enthusiasm in today's press conference, I was about as giddy as I could possibly be after my beloved 'Hawks finishing a 5-11 season.

[biju]

Well, it seems as though this is TRUE, although there still hasn't been anything official said yet:

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_fbn_seahawks_gibbs.html

I know I am going to be coaching the offensive line for Seattle. Other than that I don't know anything else. If I'm the assistant head coach fine. If I'm not, fine. I know I am going to coach the offensive line.

(In case that assistant HC seems out of line, that's the going rumor right now that he would also have this title.)

Also, there's been speculation that Ken Norton Jr. (the USC LB coach) would also be joining him and again while there hasn't been an official announcement yet, Norton certainly did in fact quit from USC.

So it turns out that while everyone had praise for Carroll's ability to recruit college players and said this can't translate to the NFL they were 100% wrong. He can recruit talented coaches. I'm much more excited now.

[biju]

Well, the coach rumors keep coming in. This time it's Jedd Fisch (bio) as WR coach.

Outside of coaching the University of Minnesota Gophers, his bigger late achievement was in 2008 getting Brandon Marshall 104 catches and Eddie Royal 91 catches. He also worked with the Ravens and Texans while spending 8 years coaching in the NFL.

His hiring could instrumental in getting our receivers to actually run the plays as designed and help them understand the benefit of doing so, as opposed to the "Dark Year of 2009" where they often decided they weren't going to run the route (true story, I read that in an article talking with Hasselbeck).

[biju]

Here is the coaching staff as I've heard it to date:

Confirmed:
HC: Pete Carroll
OC: Jeremy Bates
DC: Gus Bradley (retained)
OL: Alex Gibbs
DL: Dan Quinn (retained)
LB: Ken Norton Jr.
ST: Brian Schneider

Rumored or reported and not announced:
DB: Jerry Gray
QB: Jedd Fisch
WR: Kippy Brown

Not rumored/filled:
RB:
TE:

The list is actually very impressive so far. I'm curious what other people think about Gus Bradley and Dan Quinn being retained. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I think Dan Quinn should have been given a second chance and for the most part I've felt that way about Gus Bradley too, although if he's the one who thought rushing 3 players and dropping 8 back was a good idea I'm willing to reconsider. Regardless, I think Carroll's contributions to the defense will make a big difference.

It's too bad this didn't happen early last season instead of requiring all of us to have suffered through 2009.

[biju]

Updated:

Confirmed:
HC: Pete Carroll
OC: Jeremy Bates
OL: Alex Gibbs
QB: Jedd Fisch
TE: Pat McPherson
DC: Gus Bradley (retained)
DL: Dan Quinn (retained)
LB: Ken Norton Jr.
DB: Jerry Gray
ST: Brian Schneider

Rumored or reported and not announced:
WR: Kippy Brown
RB: Sherman Smith

It looks like we're heavily raiding the Broncos (Bates, Gibbs, Fisch, McPherson) and Redskins (Jerry Gray, Sherman Smith). I've read that Kippy Brown is done as well but it hasn't been announced. Today was the first I heard for Sherman Smith.