The best news for Todd Bowles, the winner of Sporting News’ Coordinator of the Year award, is that he has no chance of winning it back-to-back.
Bowles was so good as defensive coordinator for a Cardinals team that made the playoffs with critical players out of action every week, remaining a coordinator another year became completely unjustifiable. Ten days after the Cardinals’ season ended in Carolina, Bowles was hired as head coach of the Jets.
MORE: SN All-Pro team | Arians coach of the year | Players of the Year: Rodgers | Watt
His credentials were too good to ignore, although his credentials had been solid for 15 years, since getting into the coaching business with, yes, the Jets in 2000. Adjusting to the situation at hand has become his calling card — he pulled off midseason promotions twice, as interim Dolphins head coach for three games in 2011 and Eagles defensive coordinator for half a season in 2012.
That skill served him well in Arizona. In 2013, Bowles’ first year as coordinator on new coach Bruce Arians’ staff, the Cardinals’ defense was sixth in the NFL overall, first against the run, sixth in sacks, sixth in takeaways and seventh in points allowed.
In 2014, key defenders Darnell Dockett, John Abraham, Daryl Washington, Calais Campbell, Tyrann Mathieu and Matt Shaughnessy missed time, some of them the entire season. The defense was worse in every category, sometimes by a wide margin … except in points allowed. They gave up fewer points than the year before and were sixth in the league.
MORE: Gronkowski wins Comeback Player of the Year
And they won 11 games, had the NFL’s best record through 11 weeks, and made the playoffs after falling short the year before.
If Arians, SN’s Coach of the Year, was a wizard, Bowles was the wizard’s apprentice. He won the Coordinator of the Year balloting comfortably over Colts’ offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton (eight coaches got votes). Now, he’s an apprentice no more.