Source: Former #Charger defensive line coach Giff Smith to interview with #Cowboys today for spot on new DC Dan Quinn’s staff. Smith worked under Gus Bradley, who preceded Quinn as #Seahawks DC.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) January 13, 2021
The Dallas Cowboys hired Dan Quinn to be their defensive coordinator, and Joe Whitt Jr. as a defensive backs coach earlier this week, but it appears the club isn’t done adding coaching help on the defensive side of the ball. Dallas interviewed two people for roles in 2021. Ed Werder announced that Giff Smith was in contact with the club and according to a report by Brianna Dix of D210 Sports, Aden Durde was also in the running for a potential role under Quinn.
In addition to Giff Smith, the Cowboys have interviewed Aden Durde for a position on Dan Quinn’s defensive staff, per source. Durde served as the Falcons’ defensive quality control coach (2018-19) and outside linebackers’ coach (2020) under Quinn.
— Brianna Dix (@DixBrianna) January 15, 2021
Smith could be in line for the defensive line coaching role as a potential replacement for Jim Tomsula, who was let go after one season, just as defensive coordinator Mike Nolan was.
The Georgia Southern graduate has been coaching football since the early 1990’s, and has been a defensive line coach in the NFL for a decade now. Smith began his professional career on the Buffalo Bills staff in 2010, where he spent three seasons. Smith would then go on to the same role with the Titans for two years, then his most recent stop, the Chargers, where he oversaw their defensive front from 2016 until the end of this season.
Dix had these positive notes about Smith in her article covering the interviews,
“In Smith’s first year with the Chargers in 2016, the unit held the league’s 10th ranked rush defense and tallied the NFL’s second-highest percentage of tackles for a loss. That same year under his leadership, Joey Bosa was awarded NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors for leading the chargers and all NFL rookies in sacks with 10.5. The next year in 2017, Smith helped develop Bosa and Ingram into an elite power-edge rush duo, leading the league in pressures and combining for 23 sacks. The team’s 43 sacks were tied for fifth in the league and the defensive front continuously wreaked havoc on quarterbacks, ranking third in the league in fewest passing yards allowed.”
Smith, along with current Cowboys defensive line assistant Leon Lett, are the two names most associated with the Cowboys defensive line coaching vacancy.
The second of the two Cowboys interviewee’s, Durde, has a background unlike any other coach in NFL history.
Durde was born in Middlesex, England, where he would go on to play for the London Olympians in the British American Football Association. Durde would win a championship in London, before moving to a more respected league, NFL Europe, where he played linebacker for the Scottish Claymores.
Durde’s European success would lead him to two different NFL practice squad stints, first with the Panthers in 2005, and then with the Chiefs in 2008.
His playing career would end shortly after his time with the Chiefs, but Durde returned to London and immediately became the defensive coordinator for six seasons with his hometown London Warriors.
Durde’s next step in coaching was sparked by a moment of chance, or fate perhaps. Jason Butt of Atlanta Journal-Constitution details what happened whenever Durde visited America in 2014,
“After taking some international players to a workout in Dallas, he happened to bump into a coaching contact he knew, who helped set him up with an interview with the Cowboys. Not long after, Durde became a coaching intern for the Cowboys.”
So this week’s meeting wasn’t the first time the former linebacker has dealt with Dallas, as he was on the staff as an intern roughly five years ago.
Following that internship opportunity, Durde became the head of football development for NFL UK, where he helped lead the International Pathway Program, which links talented european football players with NFL squads.
In 2016, Durde was gifted the Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship by Dan Quinn and the Atlanta Falcons. After two seasons with Atlanta, Durde was hired to be the Falcons Defensive Quality Control Coach, making him officially the first ever British NFL coach. That lead Durde to becoming the Falcons linebackers coach this past offseason.
With ties to both the Cowboys and Quinn, it makes sense as to why Durde was brought in for an interview, but it remains unclear whether the well-respected Durde, if hired by Dallas, would work as the linebackers coach alongside Scott McCurley, or if the team would have a different role in mind for him.
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