Former Colts assistant Harold Goodwin to interview for Buccaneers head coaching job

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced today that they will interview Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin for their head coaching position.  Goodwin coached with Bruce Arians and the Colts in 2012 as the team's offensive line coach.

Goodwin is very familiar with Bruce Arians and his offense, having worked for him for the past nine seasons.  From 2007-2011, he was an offensive assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers while Arians was offensive coordinator, winning a Super Bowl with the team (in 2008).  He followed Arians to Indianapolis in 2012 and was named the team's offensive line coach, and while the unit wasn't great in 2012, the Colts made an impressive nine-win turnaround to make the playoffs.  When Arians was hired as the head coach of the Cardinals in 2013, he choose to bring Goodwin along with him as his offensive coordinator, a role Goodwin has held ever since.  With Arians and Goodwin at the helm of the Cardinals offense in the past three seasons, they have completely turned it around - going from the 32nd-ranked offense the year before they arrived to one of the best offenses in the league very quickly.

Of course, a lot of the credit to the Cardinals' offense goes to Bruce Arians, as he is the one calling plays.  But Goodwin is still the offensive coordinator of the league's best offense and therefore deserves at least an interview.  There's no harm in a team bringing him in and talking to him about his ideas and seeing what they think of him as a coach.  Furthermore, it seems he really is helping to run the offense, and Bruce Arians thinks Goodwin deserves to be a head coach.

There are a lot of people who think that Goodwin might only be interviewing with the Buccaneers to fulfill the Rooney Rule, as it seems they already have their sights on Dirk Koetter.  That's not the right way to follow the rule, but either way it's good experience for Goodwin to get interview experience.