{"id":669037,"date":"2026-01-11T15:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/669037\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T15:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T15:04:10","slug":"chiefs-star-chris-jones-reacts-to-dc-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/669037\/","title":{"rendered":"Chiefs star Chris Jones reacts to DC search"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 11, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

The Washington Commanders<\/a> are looking for a new defensive coordinator. Washington fired Joe Whitt Jr.<\/a> last week after two seasons. It was a move that became inevitable when head coach Dan Quinn stripped Whitt of defensive play-calling duties ahead of Week 11.<\/p>\n

The Commanders<\/a> hired a new offensive coordinator on Friday, promoting assistant quarterbacks coach David Blough<\/a>. Don’t expect Washington to promote an internal candidate for defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n

The Commanders have interviewed three known candidates thus far. One of those candidates drew the attention of one of the NFL’s top defensive stars.<\/p>\n

One of the three known interviews is Chiefs’<\/a> defensive line coach Joe Cullen. Considered one of the league’s top defensive line coaches, Cullen has been with the Chiefs since 2022. When ESPN’s Adam Schefter revealed that Cullen had interviewed with Washington<\/a>, star defensive tackle Chris Jones had an interesting reaction on X.<\/p>\n

That reaction would seem to indicate that Jones doesn’t want to see Cullen leave Kansas City. Of course, who really knows?<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

Cullen, a former college nose guard at UMass, has been a coach since 1990. He’s been an NFL assistant since 2006, working with multiple teams as the defensive line coach. He’s been an NFL coordinator once before, albeit briefly. During Urban Meyer’s forgettable NFL career, Cullen served as his defensive coordinator in 2021.<\/p>\n

The Commanders have the No. 7 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and badly need a pass rusher. Could Cullen be the guy to mentor Washington’s first-round pick?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 11, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET The Washington Commanders are looking for a new defensive coordinator. Washington fired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[95878,427,7,6,95993,95994,95882,97350,95896,95888,95895,95899,95884,95883,97351,96006,95881,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-669037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-commanders","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sstssportsnflcommanders","13":"tag-sstsncommanders","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-tagchris-jones","16":"tag-tagnational-sports","17":"tag-tagnfl","18":"tag-tagnfl-hub","19":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","20":"tag-tagsports-coaching-training","21":"tag-tagsports-news","22":"tag-tagurban-meyer","23":"tag-tagwashington-commanders","24":"tag-typestory","25":"tag-washington","26":"tag-washington-commanders","27":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}