Former Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy may not be out of a job for all that long. Fired by Green Bay earlier this season, McCarthy is already emerging as a hot name on the NFL coaching market, before the carousel even gets started. CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora has reported that McCarthy could hold out for the right opportunity, but he's also been connected to the Browns. And now, NBC's Peter King is reporting that McCarthy could be interested in the Cardinals.
The Mike McCarthy stuff out there is interesting. I hear he likes Arizona and would be interested in exploring the job. I heard the Cardinals have interest as well, so we'll see, assuming Steve Wilks is one-and-done there.
King's report is interesting in the wake of an Adam Schefter report earlier this week that stated several Packers assistants thought that McCarthy was going to land in Arizona last offseason. Of course, the Cardinals ended up hiring former Panthers defensive coordinator Steve Wilks instead.
The reviews of Wilks this season have been universally poor, though it's worth noting that that has not been the case from the Cardinals' players. Larry Fitzgerald stated recently that the players would prefer for Wilks to return as coach.
But given the Cardinals' investment in Josh Rosen, that might not be wise. They clearly need to get the most they possibly can out of the No. 10 overall pick, and they may not be able to do so with Wilks at the helm. Bringing in an offensive-minded head coach to shape Rosen's development makes sense; but it would be rather interesting if the coach the Cardinals decided on was McCarthy, considering that Rosen was compared in the pre-draft process to Aaron Rodgers, and it's been a widely-held opinion over the past few years that McCarthy's simplistic offense was holding Rodgers back.
