St. Louis Rams interview Arizona Cardinals’ Ray Horton for head coaching job – NFL News
As part of their ongoing hunt for a new head coach, the St. Louis Rams interviewed Arizona Cardinals’ defensive coordinator, Ray Horton, on Friday, January 6, 2012,
NFL.com reported.
Horton spent seven years in different positions with Pittsburgh Steelers before joining the Cardinals last year.
However, he has never been appointed for a seniour post like that of a head coach.
The Rams fired their coach, Steve Spagnuolo, and general manager, Billy Devaney, after 14 humiliating defeats in the recently-concluded regular season in which they ended up at the bottom of the National Football Conference (NFC)-West Division ranking.
After removing their personnel from their respective posts, the Rams began to search new faces for their front office.
They are expected to finalise the selection process within a couple of weeks.
Rams’ owner, Stan Kroenke, wants to bring a relatively young manager who would team up with a veteran coach to run the franchise’s affairs.
Given this fact, Horton does not seem to be an ideal candidate as he does not have potential experience attached to his profile.
However, Rams' chief operating officer, Kevin Demoff, had earlier clarified that the Rams would not solely chase the experienced candidates. He maintained that the franchise would look for all the available options.
“I think when you change coaches in any sport, everybody always expects you to do the opposite of what you did before”, Demoff said.
“If you have a defensive guy, you are supposed to hire an offensive guy, if you have a player’s coach, you are supposed to hire a disciplinarian, if you have a college coach, you are supposed to hire a pro coach…You can look at someone who has had experience
before but it’s not going to be automatic that we are going to look for the polar opposite of what we started with”.
According to different reports, the Rams have only interviewed Horton to abide by the ‘Rooney Rule’, which binds the teams to interview minority candidates for their head coach role and other senior management opportunities.
Former Tennessee Titans’ coach, Jeff Fisher, is supposedly the most favourable candidate to be selected by the Rams.
He also met Kroenke on Thursday, January 6.
However, Fisher is also been approached by the Miami Dolphins for their head coaching job, but has not taken any decision yet.
Tags: