Seahawks’ Aden Durde, Patriots’ Terrell Williams, should get head coaching shots. This NFL hiring cycle says otherwise.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – With another NFL season complete, two assistant coaches of color who played key roles in teams that reached the Super Bowl will now wait to see whether that success translates into their career advancement.

Based on recent history, Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde and New England Patriots defensive coordinator Terrell Williams shouldn’t hold their breath.

Despite strong resumes, high-ranking assistant coaches of color rarely receive the head coaching opportunities routinely afforded to their white counterparts. For the league’s minority coaches, the evidence is as depressing as it is incontrovertible.

One need look no further than the Seahawks’ own locker room at Levi’s Stadium.

Before the Super Bowl, word emerged that the Las Vegas Raiders planned to fill their head coaching vacancy by hiring Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who turns 39 next week. The Seahawks capped the NFL season Sunday night with a 29-13 victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl LX.

The Raiders and Kubiak’s representatives are expected to move quickly to finalize a multiyear contract that will put him at the Raiders’ controls after his only season in Seattle, and three as an offensive coordinator overall.

Kubiak’s ascent underscores how white assistants often parlay one big season into reaching the head coaching ranks – a contrast that becomes sharper when viewed alongside the stalled trajectory of assistants of color such as Durde.

Britain’s first full-time coach in the NFL, Durde, the son of a Black father and a white mother, has been the Seahawks’ top assistant on defense since head coach Mike Macdonald was hired in 2024.

Formerly a defensive line coach with the Dallas Cowboys, Durde, 46, began his coaching career in 2014 with the franchise as a Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship intern. Additionally, Durde participated in the NFL Coach Accelerator Program, which put the league’s qualified coaching candidates in the same room – many for the first time – with the powerful people who run pro sports’ most profitable league. The league has paused the program to re-evaluate it.

Macdonald, for one, is confident Durde has what it takes to run his own shop one day.

“I love A.D. He’s an integral part of our football team,” Macdonald said. “He’s a great football coach … great football mind. He brings people together.

“He’s a phenomenal leader. I keep joking that he’s going to be a head coach [after next season]. But we’ve got to be ready for it – because it’s going to happen.”

During this year’s head coaching hiring cycle, Durde interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns. The Falcons hired Kevin Stefanski and the Browns hired Todd Monken, respectively.

Although Macdonald jokes openly about Durde joining him at the top rung of the coaching ladder soon, when it comes to hiring, the joke has been on the league’s coaches of color.

In a record-tying, 10-opening cycle, Black coaches were shut out. White coaches batted .900: 10 openings – nine jobs filled.

Only the Tennessee Titans picked a coach of color: Robert Saleh, formerly the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator. Saleh is an Arab American of Lebanese descent.

The results of the cycle displeased Seattle assistant head coach Leslie Frazier.

An NFL lifer – he played five seasons for the Chicago Bears and is in his 26th season as a coach – Frazier became only the 13th Black head coach in NFL history when the Minnesota Vikings promoted him from interim head coach to the full-time role in 2011.

The league has many qualified Black coaches and coaches of color – including Durde – who would make fine head coaches, Frazier said.

“What we saw this year, well, it’s obviously disappointing for sure,” Frazier said. “Here we are celebrating Black History Month, and we don’t get a chance to celebrate the fact that a Black head coach was named in this cycle.”

In 2026, the NFL currently has as many Black head coaches as it did during the 2003 season: three. This always bears repeating: The NFL is a Black league. The number of players who identify as African American is about 54 percent – and it has been as high as 70 percent. Representation among Black coaches and other coaches of color in head coaching, proponents of inclusive hiring throughout the league contend, is important because head coaches are the faces of football operations. Representation matters.

This season, the 51-year-old Williams, who is Black, has faced issues even bigger than his potential career advancement – literally life-and-death ones.

After undergoing nearly five months of treatment for prostate cancer, the defensive coordinator has been declared cancer-free, and he was back on the Patriots’ sideline during the Super Bowl. During his treatment, Williams attended meetings at the team’s headquarters. Williams, however, didn’t travel with the Patriots until the Super Bowl, and he hadn’t been on their sideline since Week 1. During Williams’ absence, inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr handled defensive play-calling duties.

Not surprisingly, with what Williams has endured, he didn’t focus on this year’s cycle.

Williams has built an impressive record over 14 seasons coaching in the league. He’s known as an outstanding teacher who’s both strong at X’s and O’s and in building strong bonds with players.

He has never been one to look far down the road.

“Whatever my job was, I just focused on doing that job,” Williams said. “Then, I figure good things will happen. I still believe that.”

That established, Williams strives for excellence, and he believes he’s capable of succeeding at bigger challenges. Throughout his coaching career, that’s what he has done.

“But it has to be organic,” he said. “Sometimes, when you’re going out and trying to promote yourself … maybe it works for some people. But I don’t want to move like that. I just believe in doing the best you can do and see what happens.”

Williams is not alone in that approach. Most of the NFL’s diverse assistant coaches focus on the task at hand, trusting that opportunities will follow performance. It just hasn’t happened nearly as often as it does for their white colleagues.

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