Arizona Cardinals name McCoy, Holcomb and Rodgers as coordinators
Jan 26, 2018, 1:36 PM | Updated: 3:15 pm
The Arizona Cardinals have hired Mike McCoy, Al Holcomb and Jeff Rodgers as the teams’ offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators, the team announced Friday.
The announcement comes on the heels of the Cardinals’ hire of Steve Wilks as their next head coach on Monday.
McCoy began the 2017 season as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator before he was fired in November after the team lost its sixth straight game. In that span that sealed his fate, McCoy’s Denver offense averaged 322.2 yards and 14.2 points per game.
Before his brief second stay in the Mile High City, he served as the Chargers’ head coach from 2013-2016.
McCoy’s first stint with the Broncos came from 2009-2012, when he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach before he dropped the quarterback job from 2010-2012.
As a quarterback product out of Utah, McCoy played for the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe from 1997 to 1998 and Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League in 1999.
McCoy will succeed Harold Goodwin, who spent 2013-2017 as the offensive coordinator under Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians.
Coming over from Carolina with Wilks to take over defensive coordinator duties is Al Holcomb.
Holcomb has been in Carolina working with the linebackers since 2013, coaching one of the strongest linebacker groups in the league, led by Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis. Both have made the Pro Bowl multiple times under Holcomb.
In 2015, Pro Football Focus voted Holcomb as the runner-up for linebacker coach of the year.
Holcomb replaces James Bettcher, who has been with the Cardinals the past three seasons and was interviewed for the previously open head coaching position. Arizona has been in the top-seven for yards allowed in all three of Bettcher’s years running the defense.
He has been coaching since the mid 1990s when he started with Temple as a graduate assistant and linebackers coach from 1995-1996. Holcomb got his start in the NFL in 2009 with the New York Giants as a defensive quality control coach from 2009-2011 before becoming a defensive assistant from 2011-2013.
After spending the last three years serving as the Chicago Bears special teams coordinator, Rodgers brings with him 14 seasons of coaching special teams in the NFL.
During his time with the Denver Broncos, 2011-14, his special teams unit tied for second in the league with six kick returns for touchdowns. In 2011, Denver’s special teams unit was just one of three teams — Cardinals were first — to record multiple punt return touchdowns with two.
Before the NFL, Rodgers got his first crack at coaching with the University of Arizona as a graduate assistant working with the secondary and linebackers in 2001. He made the leap to the NFL in 2003, taking over as a special teams quality control coach with the San Francisco 49ers.
