Nick Piccone
Today, the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach, Bruce Arians, was on a conference call with Philly media leading up to Sunday night’s nationally televised game against the Eagles. If you’ll recall, Arians was a head coaching candidate for the Eagles after they fired Andy Reid, along with Gus Bradley, and they both were leading candidates to land the Eagles job going by most reports at the time.
Around the same time, the Eagles reportedly offered Chip Kelly the job, but he turned it down to return to Oregon. Not long after, the Eagles hired Kelly, perhaps even on the same day they interviewed Bradley for the job. What happened to Arians?
According to Arians, he has no clue.
“I had an interview set up with Chicago, because they turned the paperwork in first,” Arians said Wednesday. “While I was in Chicago, [the Eagles], Cleveland and San Diego cancelled the interviews that we had set up.”
Arians said he was never given an explanation for why his interview with the Eagles was cancelled, other than, “‘thanks, but no thanks.'”
That’s interesting. According to this USA Today report from 2013, the Eagles said they were planning to interview Arians, but then reneged on that.
“That day I was at the Bears, three of the teams decided to go in different directions. I was probably more disappointed because I thought I had the Bears job, and it was like a double-whammy.”
So, the dude thought he already had a job with the Bears. So, I won’t feel too bad for him. Arians continued, “Philly is like home. [It’s] very close to home. Having been at Temple, at least I knew exactly where to go back to the hospital.”
Arians coached the Temple Owls from 1983-88, some 20-plus years ago. Philly’s home for the Paterson, NJ native, but he’ll be looking to crush some playoff hopes of the hometown team on Sunday night. He’s got the 11-2 Cardinals playing some great football, and they’re poised to make a great playoff run. Meanwhile, Chip’s trying to just string a few more wins together so his team can make the playoffs and an early exit.
So, what’s your opinion on this? Did the Eagles make the right call in bringing in Chip? Or, did they completely miss out on another great coach in Arians, who has completely turned around the Cardinals? Let us know in the comments or on social media. Sunday night’s game just got a whole lot more interesting.