Robb Akey, a longtime college coach with a defensive background, was hired by the Washington Redskins on Monday to be their defensive line coach.
Akey, 48, spent last season as the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive line coach after six seasons as the head coach at Idaho. He had spent the previous eight seasons at Washington State, which promoted him from defensive line coach to defensive coordinator after four seasons.
He’s the second position coach to be hired by the Redskins after they brought aboard defensive coordinator Joe Barry on Jan. 20. They previously hired Perry Fewell, who was the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator, as their secondary coach last week.
Akey will replace Jacob Burney, who spent the previous five seasons with the Redskins and was one of the few holdovers from former head coach Mike Shanahan’s regime. While Akey oversaw a four-man front with the Vikings, the Redskins intend to stick with their 3-4 defensive scheme.
Head coach Jay Gruden said two weeks ago after a Senior Bowl practice in Mobile, Alabama that the Redskins will tinker with things defensively under Barry.
“There will be some different ideas that we have, as far as it’s not a two-gap 3-4,” Gruden said. “It might be more of a shoot-the-gap-type of 3-4, a get-up-the-field-and-rush-them 3-4, you know what I mean? There’s going to be some variety involved in that.
“In this day and age, with as much nickel as you see, there’s a lot of 4-3 elements anyway, but the way we do our base defense, it will be a 3-4 starting point. Once the ball is snapped, what we’re going to do is going to be different.”
Akey went 20-50 during his time at Idaho, leading the Vandals to an 8-5 record and a bowl game in 2009 but otherwise winning two or fewer games in four seasons. He was the defensive coordinator at Northern Arizona from 1996 through 1998, when Barry served as the team’s linebackers and defensive ends coach.
By hiring Akey, the Redskins have added four position coaches since the end of the season. In addition to Fewell, they hired Bill Callahan to replace Chris Foerster as the offensive line coach and added Matt Cavanaugh as its quarterbacks coach.
Kirk Olivadotti, the inside linebackers coach last season, will likely handle all linebackers in 2015. He’ll get some help from Barry, who spent the previous four seasons as the San Diego Chargers’ linebackers coach.
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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