Yo Eagles, Interview Bettcher!

The Pittsburgh Steelers are the black and gold standard of the NFL. They’ve won the Lombardi six times. Since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, they’ve had only 3 head coaches. When their second coach Bill Cowher decided to step away from coaching the Steelers selected a 34 year-old Defensive Coordinator with one year of coordinating experience, Mike Tomlin. This was third time that the Steelers selected a head coach in their 30’s (Cowher 34, Noll 38). Tomlin won a Super Bowl two years later.

Is there a Mike Tomlin out there for the Eagles to interview? Yup, Arizona Cardinals Defensive Coordinator James Bettcher.

Tomlin spent one year as the Vikings D-Coordinator. The Vikings had the 8th best defense that year. Bettcher has spent one year as the Cardinals D-Coordinator and has the 5th best defense in the NFL. The Cardinals are better defensively in almost every statistical category after Todd Bowles left to coach the NY Jets.

His players love playing for him.

Cardinals Tackle Frostee Rucker:

“A lot of things worked well with Todd, and you didn’t know the direction JB was going to take it. And he’s done phenomenal.”

Rucker went on to talk about Bettcher not having an ego and listening to his players:

“The true test of leadership is not thinking you know it all. It’s listening.

That sounds like the qualities Lurie emphasized that he was looking for in the next head coach.

Tomlin did spend more years in the NFL as an assistant than Bettcher’s three years. That didn’t seem to bother Bruce Arians. Arians didn’t hesitate in naming Bettcher Defensive Coordinator.

Bruce Arians on Bettcher:

“He’s very bright, knows the defenses, extremely articulate with the players, commands a room with the players. I always go back to John Abraham and Robert Mathis, two Pro Bowl veteran players who thought he helped them get better. That’s all you can do as a position coach. But he had the insight to become a coordinator.”

via ESPN:

“Age doesn’t have s— to do with it,” Arians said. “If you ask that guy back there (Cardinals linebacker Lorenzo Alexander), ‘Can he coach?’ I think he’ll say, ‘Hell yeah.’ The guys that he sat in rooms with –John Abraham, Robert Mathis– they know he can coach. I know he can coach. There are guys that have jobs for 40 years that shouldn’t have had them.

“It’s easy to recognize shooting stars”

“I don’t think it would be long before he is a head coach.”

If a Defensive Coordinator with one year of experience is good enough for the Steelers, it should be good enough for the Eagles. And, if they’re gonna bring in Bengals Coordinator Paul Guenther, they should talk to Bettcher. Guenther’s Bengals are decent defensively, but play with nowhere near the intensity of Bettcher’s Cardinals.

Guenther coming in to speak with the Eagles is a good sign that they’re considering defensive guys. Is it a coincidence that the franchise with the most Super Bowl wins had done so with coaches all from the defensive side of the ball (Tomlin, Cowher, Noll)?

BRING IN BETTCHER!

As always, thanks for reading and sharing. Here’s a video on Bettcher: