Hue Jackson is the Arizona Cardinals' latest interviewee as the San Francisco 49ers' NFC West rivals continue their search for an offensive coordinator.
The Arizona Cardinals' efforts to fill the holes in their coaching staff continued on Friday, as the team interviewed former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson for their vacant offensive coordinator position:
The #AZCardinals spent today interviewing former #Browns coach Hue Jackson for their vacant offensive coordinator job, sources say. Potentially back to his roots as an OC under new coach Kliff Kingsbury, while also lending valuable HC experience.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 19, 2019
After the surprising hire of head coach Kliff Kingsbury, who will call the team's offensive plays to start the 2019 season, the Cardinals are having a difficult time adding an offensive coordinator to their new coaching staff. Jackson is the sixth reported candidate to interview for the position. Over the last week, Steve Sarkisian reportedly turned down an offer from Arizona in order to return to the college ranks, and John DeFilippo chose to join the Jacksonville Jaguars in the same role.
Adding to their challenge, the Cardinals continue to hire offensive assistants like offensive line coach Sean Kugler, who was added to the coaching staff last week. Since the list of up-and-coming offensive coordinators willing to cede both play-calling duties and the ability to hire their own assistants is short, Arizona may have to settle for a candidate looking to rebound from recent failures.
Jackson would certainly fit the bill, as the former head coach won just three of 40 games before he was ousted from Cleveland last season. Jackson quickly found a home with the 5-4 Cincinnati Bengals as a special assistant to head coach Marvin Lewis. Unfortunately, the Bengals ended up at the bottom of the AFC North after losing all but one game over the remainder of the year, while the Browns ended the season in third place thanks to a 5-3 record after Jackson's absence.
Although Jackson was a failure as a head coach, he did experience some success in his six years as an offensive coordinator, including in 2015, when Jackson's Bengals had a top-10 passing attack with quarterback Andy Dalton under center.
While Jackson would provide some NFL experience to the Cardinals' coaching staff, he certainly wouldn't bring the winning culture Arizona desperately needs, given that Kingsbury's lackluster record as a head coach led to his firing from Texas Tech last season.