It's nearly impossible to hide a young, talented assistant coach in today's National Football League. The Minnesota Vikings are learning that right now as the hiring cycle has consistently targeted multiple coaches.
The latest team to call on a Vikings assistant coach is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They finished an interview with Vikings assistant offensive coordinator/assistant quarterbacks coach Grant Udinski for their open offensive coordinator position that Liam Coen vacated when he took the Jacksonville Jaguars coaching job.
Buccaneers interview Vikings assistant Grant Udinski
The Buccaneers were caught off guard when Coen took the Jaguars job. One day before, Coen had agreed to become the highest-paid coordinator in National Football League history and publically withdrew from the Jaguars coaching search.
24 hours later, Coen still hadn't signed the contract and all the chaos ensued over the situation. He officially accepted the job late in the day on Thursday and the Buccaneers were left trying to find an offensive coordinator.
Udinski has become a very popular name in the latter stages of the coaching cycle. This is the third interview he's taken over the last couple of weeks. Udinski has interviewed twice with the Seattle Seahawks for their offensive coordinator position and had an interview with the New England Patriots for the same position hours before Josh McDaniels got the job under new head coach Mike Vrabel.
Udinski, 28, has been a rising star for quite some time. O'Connell hired Udinski when he took the job in Minnesota after he spent time with the Carolina Panthers after starting his coaching career under Matt Rhule at Baylor and is now a popular name in coaching circles.
Getting an interview isn't the end of the world for the Vikings. In fact, it's arguably a good thing. He get experience talking to other coaches and organizations and can bring those ideas back with him. If the Vikings end up losing Udinski, it's the cost of doing business and an unintended consequence of going 14-3.
