By Sarah Berkowitz
The Eagles might have gotten spooked by Tom Coughlin’s “thanks but no thanks” response to a second interview, so they hired Doug Pederson.
And now it turns out that their interest in Ben McAdoo spooked the New York Giants into elevating their offensive cordinator to the top job.
Giants president and CEO John Mara confirmed today that the Eagles’ interest in Ben McAdoo led the team to speed up their process and hire him as the new head coach.
The Giants were planning to interview Hue Jackson, then the Bengals offensive coordinator, yesterday morning after the NFL owner meetings in Houston concluded. But Jackson agreed to become the Browns’ head coach without even interviewing with the Giants.
“We had wanted to bring Hue Jackson in,” Mara said. “But once that got canceled, we wanted to move Ben into the slot for that second interview. And then we found out he was going down to Philly (for a second interview with the Eagles) that morning. We thought, ‘We need to accelerate the second interview part of it.'”
So McAdoo came in on Wednesday afternoon, meeting with Mara and general manager Jerry Reese, as well as executive vice president and chairman Steve Tisch and treasurer Jonathan Tisch. Mara said after that second interview, they all felt much more comfortable hiring McAdoo.
