Intersection of Slow Road and Fast Track
Latest Candidates For Redskins' Job Took Different Paths
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
GLENDALE, Ariz., Jan. 29 -- High up in the stadium's stands, far from the sophomoric exercise known as Super Bowl media day, sat New York Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo.
Late into the 26th season of his football career, an adult lifetime of dissecting offenses and drawing up schemes had manifested itself in the gray hair that speckled his goatee. As Spagnuolo talked five days before the biggest game of his football life, a line of faces from all the places in his past kept appearing.
Cape Cod. Worcester. Connecticut. Maine. Philadelphia.
He greeted each with that glimmer of memory that comes when the context isn't exactly right. Such is the world of a coaching lifer when he gets to the Super Bowl -- so many people suddenly come back from the deep recesses of the memory.
This year, as Spagnuolo nears 50, everything is different. The anonymity of a life on the climb has worn away. This year Spagnuolo has been tapped, told gently through whispers he is a coach of the moment, chosen by whatever entity makes such determinations.
If all indications are correct, come next Monday he may well get a phone call from the Washington Redskins inquiring about his interest in becoming their head coach.
Predictably, when asked about this possibility, Spagnuolo said he is thinking only of the Super Bowl.
"I am not smart enough to think about two different things like that," he said. "I make myself ignore [head coaching talk]. Right now my focus is on the Giants."
Of course, he made sure to suggest that if the Redskins were to call, he would consider the possibility.
Two hours earlier, in a different section of the same stands, the New England Patriots' youthful, enthusiastic offensive coordinator, Josh McDaniels, talked about the only professional organization he has known and the only mentor he has had as a professional: Bill Belichick.
For as circuitous a path as Spagnuolo has taken to becoming the hot name at this Super Bowl, McDaniels's has been straight and swift. This is how it is for the young and fortunate in the NFL. Get to the right team, the right coach, the right system, gain some power, and soon enough they'll be talking about you as the big new thing, trained by the best, ready to lead.
Like Spagnuolo, McDaniels may too get a phone call from the Redskins next week.
