The Buffalo Bills aren’t expected to interview a boatload of candidate for their head-coach vacancies but a Cardinals offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin, relatively unknown name to the casual football fan has made the list.
Whaley confirms Interview request has been made to interview Cardinals OC Harold Goodwin for HC job. #Bills
— Chris Brown (@ChrisBrownBills) January 2, 2017
Goodwin was an offensive lineman at the University of Michigan from 1992 to 1995 and began his coaching career as a Wolverine graduate assistant after his time as a player.
After he left Ann Arbor, he stayed in the state, coaching the offensive lines at Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan.
In 2004, he was hired as the Chicago Bears offensive line coach. From 2007 to 2011, he was an assistant offensive line coach and quality control coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Arians was the offensive coordinator for the Steelers all five of those seasons.
Goodwin spent one year with the Colts as the team’s offensive line coach before following Bruce Arians to Arizona when he was hired as the head coach of the Cardinals in 2013. Though Arians has called the plays, Goodwin as been the team’s offensive coordinator for the past four seasons.
Here’s how the Cardinals have finished with Goodwin as the OC:
2013: 12th in yards, 16th in points
2014: 24th in yards, 24th in points
2015: 1st in yards, 2nd in points
2016: 9th in yards, 6th in points
Worth noting — Arians, who’s Goodwin’s mentor, is a big proponent of the vertical passing game. Goodwin interviewed for the Buccaneers head-coach vacancy last year.