Eagles' Castillo prepared for interview with usual intensity

When Juan Castillo, after 16 seasons in the NFL, finally got a chance to become a coordinator, he had 20, maybe 22 hours to get ready for a 4 a.m. interview.

Castillo worked through the night, going home only to eat and get a suit. He met Eagles head coach Andy Reid with a defensive scheme that meshed what new defensive line coach Jim Washburn and his teams had done previously with the Eagles' style.

He talked for 5 1/2 hours. A day later, he was the Eagles' defensive coordinator.

It was representative of the career of Castillo, a grinder who worked up the coaching ladder from inauspicious beginnings.

"You talk about challenges, brother, that's my life," he said.

It was also typical Reid: a decision sheathed in secrecy and made within the Eagles' family and its familiar compound. The Eagles are the only NFL team Castillo, 51, has known as a full-time coach.

In bypassing outside candidates for one so inexperienced on defense, Reid underscored his zealous devotion to his own organization, even more so than when he named Sean McDermott to replace the late Jim Johnson.

Reid said McDermott worked hard and did "a heck" of a job. But, in his first comments on McDermott's firing, Reid said Wednesday: "It was best for the Eagles and best for Sean McDermott for us to go a different direction."

Whether that was because of inexperience, the pressure of following Johnson, or another reason, Reid didn't say.

Castillo knows he, too, faces enormous pressure and skepticism, given that he has never coached defense in the NFL and led an offensive line that struggled last season.

"You have to take that challenge and make something of it," Castillo said Wednesday.

Castillo has made his career out of slim openings. He was a linebacker at tiny Texas A&I and played in the USFL. He went back to his old school, now Texas A&M-Kingsville, for his first coaching job, then moved to Kingsville High School as defensive coordinator. There, in 1989, was his last time coaching defense.

The next year he went back to Texas A&M-Kingsville as an offensive line coach, then jumped to the Eagles as an offensive assistant in 1995. He moved to tight ends for a year, then to the offensive line in 1998.

Castillo, an energetic presence who punctuated his linemen's practice blocks with shouts of "Boom!," said he dreams of being a head coach and thought the chance would come through an offensive coordinator's job. But his only interview this off-season, according to the Eagles, was his 4 a.m. meeting with Reid. Castillo's preparation foreshadowed the approach he said he planned to take on defense.

"If you can't figure out what the problem is, then you can't go to sleep," he said.

Reid said he sees some of himself in Castillo. He noted that Mike Holmgren once gave him a chance to move from coaching the offensive line to quarterbacks. Of course, that was on the same side of the ball, and there was still a coordinator with final responsibility. Now, Castillo stands over an entire defense, where he hasn't worked since George H.W. Bush's presidency.

Castillo, appearing on the Fanatic (97.5 FM) on Thursday, hinted that the defense might be simplified so his group can play "fast" and "physical."

"To do that, sometimes you have to make things easy," Castillo said. McDermott was criticized for running overly complex defenses.