Bowles comfortable in role as Eagles assistant coach

TODD BOWLES never knew fear.

Not in the dangerous projects of Elizabeth, N.J.; not as a lightly regarded Temple defensive back; not as an unlikely NFL Cinderella, or as a young starter on a Redskins' Super Bowl champion team, or in Green Bay's hallowed front office, or at the golden feet of Eddie Robinson and Bill Parcells.

"The only time I was scared was when I looked down and saw my mother on her deathbed," Bowles said. "She was my best friend."

Joan Bowles was 65 when the cancer finally won. That was almost 3 years ago.

Her four children are so close that they seldom speak of the disease and how it robbed them of her. So terrible was the ordeal that they will not identify where the tumors attacked.

It left her family exhausted. It left her baby boy bereft.

"That was very hard," said Kenny Bowles, at 49 older by 1 year. "He was always very special. He was Momma's boy, very close to her. He's come a long way. He deals with it better now."

And so, when the Dolphins went 0-7 to start 2011, Bowles, the defensive backs coach and assistant head coach, didn't flinch. When Tony Sparano's head rolled after Game 13 and Bowles got the interim tag, he simply bowed his back and coached the Fins to a 2-1 finish.

Now, after the Dolphins and Raiders passed on him as a head coach, he is in Philadelphia, the Eagles' obvious insurance policy against another 1-4 start. He will coach a corps of defensive backs either overpaid or inexperienced.

He will look over the shoulder of second-year defensive coordinator Juan Castillo, who, along with head coach Andy Reid, will forever serve as the scapegoats for the lost Dream Team season of 2011.

Bowles does not fear this, either.

"I'm not trying to come here to be a defensive coordinator or a head coach. I'm here to coach the secondary," Bowles said yesterday. "All the other stuff, I'll let everybody else figure out."

The Eagles reportedly were denied permission to interview him for their vacant defensive coordinator's position after the 2010 season - but, Reid said after he hired Castillo, the job was always Castillo's to lose.

Bowles was available this season. Castillo remains, despite his defense's struggles in the first half of last season. So, ostensibly, Bowles would not have been hired last year, either.

He seems fine with that.