Finally taking off my lurking suit to add a opinion:
Honestly, between the two, I’d rather have Kelly. Imo, He’s a better fit for young coach like MacDonald with plenty of experiences good and bad of being a head coach if not more. MacDonald as of now needs a guy with that type of experience and resume to handle the Offensive personnel. Like others in other threads who have dove deeper than I have said Kelly might do well in a OC only role focusing solely on offense rather than a team in whole away from all other distractions and duties of being the top guy in control.
It also helps that two of three Kelly’s best players on his 2022 UCLA offense are currently Seahawks in Charbs and Bobo. Specifically remembering the UCLA team that handed the Huskies one of their 3 losses in DeBoer’s tenure.
And it wouldn’t bother me to let’s say with Kelly and MacDonald, Walker and Woolen aren’t big time fits for them and you could swing a trade to land Kelly’s other best player of his 2022 offense in QB DTR.
Walker and Woolen to the Browns for DTR, 2nd round pick, and 5th round pick.
Makes sense for the Browns because Walker imo would strive behind that Oline with Watson’s running ability and NJoku becoming a scary ass TE would take pressure out of the box and put Walker in better opportunities to find space. That and cutting Chubb saves them almost 12m. Woolen is more iffy as he has the ability to start but in the very least gives them a solid rotational chess piece with length, speed, and tons of the play-making potential and pedigree which their defense seemed to really strive on in this past year. Browns are in a competitive window are starting to feel cap restraints for the first time in what feels forever. So it would make sense to add low cost immediate impact each with 2 years on their contract rather than gamble in the draft.
Make sense for the Seahawks as they need to start rolling the dice on some QBs. Some might not like DTR but he kind of reminds me of discount Lamar Jackson and gives Kelly a QB he knows well and can run his offense at least in the interim. JS doesn’t have to worry about extensions on those two players especially with guys like Charbs (who Kelly probably will prefer starting over Walker if both were to stay) and Witherspoon right behind them and both perhaps are much better fits long term for the new regime. And most importantly you get back the draft ammo you lost trading for Big Cat which is huge for a young coach trying to rebuild a team with his own guys and scheme fits.
Honestly, I did not like the Kelly and Quinn combo but Kelly and McDonald makes a lot of sense as he would have Kelly (as well as Frazier) to lean on from his experiences and be more comfortable with for Kelly to handle his duties which he wouldn’t have gotten from other OC candidates like Grubb or Engstrand, who would have more growing pains and learning curves for sure even though they might be considered up and comers.
So I feel Kelly is my guy and he could have more pull, insight to help fill out an offensive staff (looking at Ryan Gunderson and DeShaun Foster on his current UCLA staff) as well as a better feel to help identify and scout offensive players in draft the next 3-4 years much like Carroll was able to do when he first came aboard.