Chiefs could turn to Pasqualoni as next coach
Posted: January 15th, 2009 | Adam Schefter | Tags: Kansas City Chiefs, NFL coaching search, Paul Pasqualoni, Scott Pioli
As new Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli tries to decide who should be his head coach, multiple league sources believe it’s worth paying attention to Dolphins defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni.
When Pioli was a graduate assistant at Syracuse in 1988 and 1989, Pasqualoni was an assistant coach at the school. Pasqualoni has acquired the reputation as one of the more respected coaches in the game and merited consideration from other teams involved in head-coaching searches this offseason.
Plus, Pasqualoni works for Pioli’s father-in-law, Bill Parcells, the Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations. Were Pioli to turn to Pasqualoni, he would be going with a similar coaching model to the one that Parcells deployed so successfully in Miami this season.
After Parcells accepted the Dolphins’ job, he hired Tony Sparano, a 47-year-old coach who was a head coach at the University of New Haven before moving on to Boston University and the NFL. The now 59-year-old Pasqualoni had a similar start, coaching at Southern Connecticut State and Western Connecticut before becoming the head coach at Syracuse in 1991 and then moving on to Parcells’ Cowboys staff in 2005.
Pioli always has liked and respected Pasqualoni. Now, as Pioli tries to decide which head coach to go with, he can choose Herm Edwards, Pasqualoni, Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo or another candidate.
It doesn’t mean Pasqualoni will be Pioli’s choice. It just means that, from this point on, he’s a person of interest.