Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin handed reins to offseason workouts
Jun 4, 2016, 8:03 AM
Offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin works with linemen Earl Watford and Evan Boehm during an OTA practice.
TEMPE, Ariz. — The text arrived while Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin was in church one Sunday.
It was from head coach Bruce Arians.
“He just simply said, ‘You got it all,’” Goodwin told reporters recently.
‘All’ as in all the offseason work.
“So far I can tell you this offseason he’s done completely nothing,” Goodwin said of Arians, adding quickly. “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”
From organized team activities to mini-camp, Goodwin is running meetings, preparing practice plans and calling plays as Arians stands by, though sometimes as a not-so-quiet observer.
“Pretty much it’s just been me and the other offensive coaches doing all the scripts and whatnot on the field,” Goodwin said. “Now don’t get me wrong. He might say, ‘I don’t like that’ or ‘I don’t want it done that way’ but for the most part he’s taken a step back and let me grow as a coach, and I really appreciate it.”
Goodwin is entering his fourth season as the Cardinals’ offensive coordinator, while 2016 will be the 10th straight year he and Arians have worked together after previous assignments with Pittsburgh and Indianapolis.
Goodwin wants to be a head coach one day; he interviewed with Tampa Bay last year.
Arians wants the same thing. He wants Goodwin to join Todd Bowles — now in year two with the New York Jets — as the second branch on his coaching tree.
It’s why in each of the past two years, Arians has allowed Goodwin to call plays in a handful of preseason games.
“I feel good about calling plays. The thing is B.A. doesn’t feel good about me calling plays because he says I don’t take enough shots (downfield),” said Goodwin, who at this point is interrupted by wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
“He runs the ball every time,” Fitzgerald said, smiling.
“I tell him, we’re moving the ball,” Goodwin continued. “‘Well, take a friggin’ shot!’ I have to take a shot every now and then.”
Once again this preseason, Goodwin, who recently received a raise –“I’ll just say (team president) Michael Bidwill is good to all of us,” he said — is expected to call plays for two or three games with Arians “probably most definitely calling the third game so he can get in play-calling shape.
“The biggest thing about calling plays when you’ve never done it — this will be my third season—is the hash marks,” Goodwin said, “that’s the biggest thing because calling plays is calling plays. Every play that Coach calls is perfect. It’s up to the players at that point. Long time ago, a coach told me, ‘Xs and Os don’t breathe, players do’. We have good players so I expect us to execute at a high level on offense, defense and special teams.”
