Juan Castillo Fired: Eagles name Todd Bowles as defensive coordinator

Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid said he planned to "tear things apart" in his team's bye week and so far, he's stuck to his word. Today Reid fired defensive coordinator Juan Castillo.

"I want to make it clear that I have nothing but the ultimate respect for Juan Castillo as a coach and as a person," Reid said in a statement. "He's one of the finest football coaches that I have ever worked with. He has served this organization extremely well for 18 years and letting him go was a difficult decision. I know he will continue to be a successful coach in this league and wish he and his family nothing but the best."

Castillo was a leftover from the previous regime before Reid, but so impressed the new coach that he was one of just two coaches to retain their job when Reid took over 14 seasons ago. However, the job he kept was offensive line coach. So it was certainly a shock when after holding that job for 12 seasons under Reid that Castillo was promoted to defensive coordinator prior to last year.

His first season was a bit of a roller-coaster ride with the defense seemingly playing pretty well as far as stats go (they finished top 10 in the league in yards allowed), but they failed to hold leads on a number of occasions and allowed a historic number of red zone trips to turn into touchdowns.

After a hot start to the season, the same types of issues have started to crop up the past several games. Both against the Steelers and Lions, the Eagles held fourth quarter leads that the defense failed to hold. It was particularly egregious on Sunday when Philadelphia held a 10 point edge with just 5 minutes left and still could not close the game.

Still, the overall stats aren't terrible for the defense. They currently rank 12th in league in overall defense and are allowing just over 20 points per game. For Reid, it's not good enough.

“We’re six games into the season and average isn’t good enough," he said. "I know the potential of our team and insist on maximizing it.”

The defensive stats aren't great, but they are above average in the league, which is more than you can say for the offense which currently ranks 2nd to last in scoring at 17.2 points per game.

Problem there is, Andy Reid is ultimately the man in charge of the offense and he's not going to fire himself.

The Eagles have named secondary coach Todd Bowles as their new defensive coordinator. Bowles was previously the interim head coach of the Miami Dolphins last year.