Ken Norton Jr. is heading to the NCAA. The long-time coach is expected to join UCLA as their new linebackers coach, reports Bruce Feldman of The Athletic (via Twitter).
Norton Jr. started his coaching career with USC, but he’s been in the NFL since 2010. After winning three Super Bowl rings as a player, Norton Jr. added another championship to his resume as the Seahawks linebackers coach. After five seasons in Seattle, Norton Jr. was defensive coordinator for three years with the Raiders and four years with the Seahawks (second stint).
Norton Jr. was let go by Seattle following the 2021 campaign. Now, he’ll be joining Chip Kelly’s staff in Los Angeles.
More coaching notes:
- The Ravens announced that they’ve officially promoted Anthony Weaver to be their assistant head coach/defensive line coach. Weaver had a long coaching stint with the Texans, culminating in him serving as their defensive coordinator in 2020. The 41-year-old joined the Ravens last year as their defensive line coach/run game coordinator.
- Former NFL safety Mike Mitchell is joining the Colts staff as an assistant secondary coach, according to Stephen Holder of The Athletic (on Twitter). Mitchell had a 10-year playing career, including a one-year stint with Indianapolis. The Colts are also hiring Nate Ollie as their defensive line coach, per Aaron Wilson of ProFootballNetwork.com (via Twitter). Following two seasons with the Eagles, Ollie spent last season as the Jets assistant defensive line coach.
- Bills secondary coach John Butler got a promotion, adding the role of defensive passing game coordinator to his title, according to Wilson. The veteran has spent the past four seasons as the secondary coach in Buffalo. The Bills also confirmed a number of additional hires, including Kyle Shurmur (defensive quality control coach), Nick Lacy (strength and conditioning assistant coach), Marcus West (assistant defensive line coach), Jaylon Finner (defensive quality control coach), Cory Harkey (assistant special teams coach), and Austin Gund (fellowship coach).
- The Browns are expected to promote offensive assistant T.C. McCartney to tight ends coach, according to Wilson (on Twitter). The 32-year-old has bounced around the NFL a bit during his coaching journey. After spending the 2019 campaign as the Broncos quarterbacks coach, McCartney spent the 2020 season as an offensive assistant on the Browns.
I suppose a “fellowship” coach is needed to help players watch Lord of the Rings movies. I know I’m becoming a broken record on bloated coaching staffs but this is ridiculous.
Doesn’t it make sense to have more coaches than ever at a time when there’s less allowed practice time than there used to be? If there are financial incentives to have younger players, but rules making it harder to coach them up, it makes sense to have more coaches. Plus most of these teams make so much money that they’re happy to spend more money on competitive edges that aren’t capped.
If there is less practice time then the sensible thing to do is streamline the process and focus on coaching the fundamentals. Too many cooks in the kitchen always results in a disaster. I know your too intelligent to actually believe a “fellowship” coach would give a team a competitive edge.
I have no idea. Maybe the fellowship coach is taking on stuff that would be a waste of time for other coaches, but is needed. Maybe this is a way of developing a coaching talent pipeline so that they have coaches well prepared for in house promotions when other people get hired away. There are foreseeable benefits. And it’s not like you can only coach fundamentals at the expense of installing a scheme in today’s NFL.
@Oooof. You could have offensive and defensive schemes that would be the envy of Einstein but if your players can’t execute the fundamentals of blocking and tackling your going to end up with a record like Hue Jackson.
I’m on the fence on the ginormous size of the coaching; I think some specialization is necessary & good (ie CB’s & safeties separate because their roles are so different); however, having a TE coach & an asst. TE coach when you only have 3 TE’s on the roster seems ridiculous.
My favorite is teams employing 3 quality control coaches when the roster quality is so bad the team can barely manage 3 wins a season.
Not long before sidelines look like a collegiate or NBA bench area…more coaches than players.
Some teams now have more coaches on staff than NASA had engineers at mission control during the Apollo moon landings.