Bowles has defense leading the playoffs charge
PHILADELPHIA — Cardinals defensive coordinator Todd Bowles arrived here Friday night with the same game plan he’s used since he played for the Redskins in the late 1980s.
“As long as I get a cheesesteak from Ishkabibble’s, I’m good,” he said. “Ishkabibble’s on South Street is the place.”
As for the game plan for the Eagles today, Bowles was considerably less forthcoming. Neither was he interested in a story line that has him returning here as vindicated hero.
“This is a player’s game,” Bowles said. “I said that a long time ago.”
Maybe, but that doesn’t make Bowles’ return to Philadelphia less interesting. He spent 2012 with the Eagles, starting as secondary coach then taking over as defensive coordinator when Andy Reid fired Juan Castillo at mid-season.
A bad defense became worse, and Reid and his staff were fired.
Bowles wasn’t without work for a minute. Bruce Arians, his college coach at Temple, hired him in Arizona. And with a new scheme and six new starters, Bowles has crafted a defense that has carried the Cardinals (7-4) into playoff contention.
It’s an intriguing angle for media to pursue and fans to discuss. That doesn’t mean Bowles has to participate.
Don’t you like being a genius again? he was asked.
“I never knewI was a genius in the first place,” he said.
Bowles wasn’t a controversial hire by Arians, but an intriguing one. Under former coordinator Ray Horton, the Cardinals defense dramatically improved the last two seasons.
Horton was still under contract, but Arians wanted his own manin the job: Bowles.
Asked if he took satisfaction in Bowles’ success, Arians replied: “There was never a doubt in mymind he would be, so it’s really not satisfaction, no. I knew it coming in, and I just hope we get to keep him — but I’d really like to see him become a head coach.”
A year ago, it appeared Bowles was far away from that goal as the Eagles collapsed. Reflecting on 2012, Bowles declined to blame the players or other coaches.
“As a coach, when you’re getting the job you think you can do everything,” he said. “I didn’t get it done. We didn’t get it done as a team.
“As a whole, the organization was great. We just didn’t get it done. But that didn’t stop my belief as a coach or anything like that. It just happened to steamroll and went downhill.”
With the Cardinals, Bowles has coordinated a unit that featured six new starters at the start of the season.
They lost three outside linebackers, including two starters, in Week 3, yet recovered and have ascended to the eighth-ranked unit in the NFL, based on yardage allowed.
And while the base defense remains a 3-4, there are significant differences between what the Cardinals did in 2012 and what they are doing now.
Defensive linemen, for instance, are given more opportunities to penetrate rather than read and react.
Inside linebacker Karlos Dansby played for the Dolphins when Bowles was an assistant there and interim head coach for three games in 2011. Dansby had no doubt Bowles was a wise choice for the Cardinals job.
“He’s been around football for all his life,” Dansby said. “He played the game, so he has insight about what’s going and how to play the game. I know when he got the opportunity in whatever role it was going to be, whether it was going to be a head coach or defensive coordinator, that he was going to be successful.”