Ever since Bruce Arians stepped away from his job with the Cardinals, his name has been buzzed about as a potential head coaching candidate. He sat out the 2018 season while calling games for CBS, but appears set to return to the sidelines. He’s been publicly lobbying for the Browns’ job for a while now, but has seemingly now set his sights on the Buccaneers’ job. Because Arians retired with time still left on his contract with Arizona, the consensus was that whatever team would want to hire Arians would need to give some compensation to the Cardinals, but that’s apparently not the case, according to Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com.
Florio notes in a tweet that the Cardinals would’ve needed to exercise their option on Arians in order to have a claim on him, which they didn’t do. As such, Florio writes in his article that the Buccaneers didn’t even bother to notify the Cardinals they were interviewing him. As of now, Arians seems like a strong favorite to be Jameis Winston‘s next coach.
Here’s more from the coaching carousel:
- We’ve heard that former Jets coach Todd Bowles will be in high demand as a defensive coordinator and possibly even head coach, and he might be even more sought after than anyone realized. Multiple head coaching candidates in this cycle are telling people they’ll try to get Bowles to be their defensive coordinator, according to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports (Twitter link). It’s unclear exactly what teams might be in the mix, although there have been rumors he could reunite with Arians wherever he lands. Bowles was Arians’ defensive coordinator in Arizona for two seasons before being hired by the Jets.
- We heard on Black Monday that the Browns were hoping to interview Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus for their vacancy, and now the interview has been scheduled. Eberflus will meet with Cleveland’s team tomorrow, the day after his team’s playoff win over the Texans, according to Dan Graziano of ESPN (Twitter link). Eberflus has done a great job running Indy’s young defense this year, and has been a hot name in this cycle.
- Steelers offensive line coach Mike Munchak has “strong interest” in the Broncos’ opening, sources told Adam Schefter of ESPN. Schefter notes that Munchak has “professional and personal ties to Denver” and that he shares an agent with Broncos GM John Elway. Munchak, who turned down a head coaching job last year according to Schefter, was the Titans’ head coach for three years before being fired and landing in Pittsburgh. Schefter writes that Munchak has been very reluctant to leave “because of his feelings for the Steelers”, but it sounds like the Broncos will be able to pull him away if they want to.
Damn that’s a huge loss for the Steelers he has been a god send. I wish him all the best if he goes and to tell you the truth personally would rather give him a shot with the Steelers than have Tomlin.
Hopefully he stays knowing Tomlin has a short leash and Munchak will get a shot when he inevitably fail.
All aspects of the team the Oline was far and away the tightest unit. He developed projects consistently while Butler and Porter has countless 1st and 2nd round picks that have been failures.
I’m a Giants’ fan but see a lot of Steelers’ games because of where I live – Northeastern Pa. I prefer watching Pittsburgh than Philly as it’s what regional broadcasts dictate.
I like Munchak a lot. He’s done a great job with what he’s had to work with in Pitt.
Tom Bradley, also. I’d love to see him be def. coordinator at PSU, but I think he’s viewed as an “old hand” there and would clash with Jimmy “Used Cars” Franklin. Shoot, I’d rather Bradley as HC, to be honest.
I think Arians would be good for the Bucs and if he brought in Bowles as DC that would be pretty awesome for them. They’d have a solid staff with just those two alone. Curious to see how all these openings play out. I know McCarthy is the favorite for the Jets job but I still feel he’d be great with the Brown and that’s the one I’m most interested in seeing what happens and curious to see what happens in GB, if they land McDaniels, if McDaniels finally leaves New England or if he goes to the Browns. Maybe we will have more clarity by the end of next week. It’s actually really exciting with all these big names available and all these openings.
McCarthey and his 1995 play calling are not going to the Browns
Let me see if I have the Arians story down. He saw that the Cards were not going to be good. Retired and went to the booth for a year & now, magically, can coach again?
I can fully appreciate the stress the job comes with, but that really comes off as just a quitter on his players.
As a good FA, why would they want to go to the Bucs knowing they have a bad QB and a coach who may flake out? Plenty of teams have money for good players.
Good point. Arians reason for stepping down was health and family. Guess he got better.