Seahawks hire Cable
Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Tom Cable, a Snohomish High School graduate, is coming back to the Northwest.
The Seattle Seahawks announced Tuesday that Cable, who played for Dick Armstrong at Snohomish and graduated in 1982, will join Pete Carroll’s coaching staff as the assistant head coach/offensive line coach.
Cable spent the last two-plus seasons as the head coach in Oakland, but the Raiders declined to keep him after his contract expired. Cable, who also played University of Idaho, has spent most of his coaching career as an offensive line coach.
Cable, 46, took over as Oakland’s head coach after Lane Kiffin was fired four games into the 2008 season. The Raiders went 8-8 this season, their first non-losing season since 2002, and went 6-0 in the AFC West, but Oakland decided to make a change at head coach.
Cable is a coaching disciple of renowned offensive line coach Alex Gibbs, who was hired by Pete Carroll to be Seattle’s offensive line coach, but abruptly resigned days before the first game of the season. Because of injuries and inconsistent play, the Seahawks started 10 different offensive line combinations in 16 game, and finished the year ranked 31st in rushing offense.
As of Tuesday evening, Art Veloro, the team’s offensive line coach for the 2010 season, and assistant offensive line coach Pat Ruel were still on staff according to a team spokesman, though there is no word on if both will be retained long term.
The Seahawks also announced the hiring of Todd Wash as the defensive line coach, replacing Dan Quinn who took the defensive coordinator job at the University of Florida. Wash spent the last three seasons as Tampa Bay’s defensive line coach.
Seattle promoted two coaches already on staff to fill the vacant defensive backs coach position, which came open when Jerry Gray accepted a job at the University of Texas. Kris Richard, a former Seahawk, was named the defensive backs coach/cornerbacks. He spent last season as an assistant defensive backs coach and before that was a graduate assistant under Carroll at USC. Rocky Seto, who also came to Seattle from USC, was promoted from quality control coach to assistant defensive backs coach/safeties.
The Seahawks are still currently without an offensive coordinator after firing Jeremy Bates Tuesday, and a quarterbacks coach to replace Jedd Fisch, who took the offensive coordinator job at the University of Miami.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more Seahawks coverage, check out the Seahawks blog at heraldnet.com/seahawksblog
