A Lesson in Hard Work – How Aden Durde’s Super Bowl journey is inspiring a new generation of British American Football coaches
This Sunday’s Super Bowl LX will have a unique and historic British appeal, as Seahawks defensive coordinator and former London Warrior Aden Durde flies the flag for British American football. Ahead of kick-off in San Francisco, we catch up with one of Durde’s former defensive playmakers Niall Scott–Grant to hear about the coach’s impact on the British scene.
Aden Durde’s rise to the role of defensive coordinator on one of the NFL’s highest performing franchises has been felt on both sides of the Atlantic, with the Brit making headlines not just for his impact on the field, but for the example he is now setting for fellow coaches in the UK.
Following a successful playing career that took Durde from grassroots American football in Middlesex, to the London Olympians, NFL Europe and the Kansas City Chiefs practice squad, Durde stepped into coaching with the London Warriors under head coach Tony Allen. Four Britbowl appearances and two national championship titles later, Durde joined the Dallas Cowboys on a coaching internship that would kickstart his journey to where he finds himself today.
In 2018 Durde became the first British full-time NFL coach as defensive quality control and subsequently outside linebacker coach with the Atlanta Falcons. Durde returned to the Cowboys in 2021 as defensive line coach under coordinator Dan Quinn, before being hired by the Seahawks in 2024 as the first British defensive coordinator in league history.
“It should be a glowing example of needing to put the hard work in,” says Niall Scott-Grant, a former London Warrior and Great Britain Lion who played under Durde during his time in the capital.
“Where he is from a mental point, what he believes in, his ability to give that feedback and understand thought processes and decision-making, it’s inspirational. It’s a credit to his hard work and a credit to his passion, but you can’t say inspiration without pointing to that hard work.
“It’s even more inspirational because it’s a British guy doing it – we’ve just never had that.”
As Durde now prepares to face the New England Patriots in the finale of the NFL’s 2025 season, Scott-Grant recalls how the culture embedded by the likes of Tony Allen and Aden Durde at the London Warriors still presents itself in Seattle’s 2026 brand of football.
“The expectation was always to be at 150%. For everyone that bought into it, that wanted to go to another level, it was taught that you have to not just be better than your American counterparts, you’ve got to be a different world to them. You’ve got to meet all the standards that they have, but you have to be a different level to be taken seriously.
“The players that adapted to it, you can see where they’ve gone; to Europe, to college, you’ve got some in the NFL.
“There are things that Ad [Durde] taught us to do from a defensive coordinator perspective that I’ve seen him still doing in the NFL and some coaches not doing. We had it in its infancy; little things like being able to match coverage to defensive fronts, bringing pressure in a different way.”
The standards set by Durde and Allen became the driving force behind Scott-Grant and his teammates’ ambitions to go further than Brits had gone before. Whether it was competing in Europe, earning American college scholarships or aspiring to the NFL, these coaches were creating a pathway built on the very highest expectations.
“When I got to the Warriors, I saw Ad at that point and I wanted to learn from him. TA [Allen] was very much involved in NFL Europe at the time, so just seeing those guys doing what they did, the ideology around them, where their mental was compared to other coaches that weren’t able to have that experience, it was something eye-catching to me.
“They were asking for you to be something that normal British culture is not going to ask you, in fact, British culture is going to tell you not to do. To run at a different speed, to be as unapologetic as possible. Understanding that there was no one to ‘save you’ in the football sense.
“My coaches knew the American experience, they knew about ‘passing the eye test’. So when they saw me and one of them commented ‘you don’t know what you’ve got’, it intrigued me. Just being able to see the impact that they had on the British game made me more interested and more involved in understanding what it takes to get there.”
Scott-Grant’s development at the Warriors earned him a scholarship at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in 2014, before returning to European football in the German Football League with the Dresden Monarchs and Potsdam Royals.
“For me being able to go over there [to the US] and be in a fighting position was pivotal. I can definitely hang my hat on TA and Ad having me ready for that.
“When you arrive on American soil, it’s very much ‘who is this British guy?’ It doesn’t go any further than that until you can prove it physically on the field and mentally having the understanding of coverages, understanding the framework for the defense.
“The American game is not the European game. Once you understand that what we do here is not the same as what they do there, then you put yourself in a position of ‘I’m still learning’. You release the ego, you release the ‘oh, I know everything’ and you really knuckle down. You get to understand football and see where the chess games are.”
Following in the footsteps of his former coordinator, Scott-Grant has now turned his hand to coaching. From running the defensive line at the NFL Academy, to joining the Great Britain Men’s Performance staff, the former pass rusher points to the importance of utilizing the experience of the UK’s trailblazing players to drive the sport forward.
“It’s constant development, constant investment. You have to bring in the right people and have those coaches to be able to sponge from – everything they say should really be taken into a tool. Jerome Allen [another new addition to the Great Britain staff] has been one of the frontrunners for British quarterbacks in the time that he’s been playing, seeing how he adapts and asking the right questions, that’s going to change the ‘quarterback tradition’ if you can call it that.
“He’s been the only person to be able to get a British quarterback to a NCAA Division One university in Sam Fenton. Being able to see that change, you can see the shift immediately.
“Then Jermaine Allen, going to the NFL, his credentials are what they are. Having him on the staff, being able to see the running backs that he’s able to push forward, that’s a different speed.”
Ahead of the 2026 British league season, Scott-Grant rejoins the Warriors to coach their U16 side, taking the experience from his own journey to support and develop the next generation of British American football players.
Having already worked with numerous athletes at the NFL Academy on their way to college scholarships and pro contracts, including Dante Barnett (Green Bay Packers), Luke Yau Gayle (University of Buffalo), Emmanuel Okoye (University of California, Berkeley) and Lopez Sanusi (Boise State University), Scott-Grant reflects on finding motivation in nurturing the talent of his athletes.
“When I see it from a youth level, being able to see a player that doesn’t know football, doesn’t understand what they’re doing, it’s all about seeing them change for the better, seeing how football adapts to their life and then their life adapts to football.
“I had quite a few kids that were able to get D1 scholarships, that was something that I didn’t see coming. Being able to be the change; I had kids from the UK, kids from Nigeria, being able to see how they came in and where they could get to, that’s what fires me up.”
Now with Durde set to grace a Super Bowl sideline this weekend, a monument to the effort and mindset that has carried him to this point, Scott-Grant is empowered by what his former coach’s achievements represent for a community that is rallying behind him.
“My hope is that it just shines a light on the potential.
“Potential being the key word. It means that it’s not finished, but there’s a potential for the next one. There are a lot of coaches that are putting in the time, going to events, going out to the US. Seeing the experiences that Ad has had, you can see where everyone needs to get to, and what needs to happen for them to be able to have a shot.”
The Seattle Seahawks take on the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Sunday 8 February. Tune in live on Channel 5 or Sky Sports from 23:30.
Interested in coaching American football? Learn more about coaching courses available at https://www.bafca.co.uk/.