Say what you will about the brief tenure of Mike Pettine as head coach of the Cleveland Browns, but one thing was made abundantly clear in the years immediately prior — Pettine is a proven commodity as a defensive coordinator.

That’s why it should be a no-brainer that new Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson go after Pettine to be his first coordinator. The reports floating around now are that former Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz and recent New York Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo are among the leaders, but that would be a huge mistake. Spagnuolo’s defense with the Giants was a sieve this season and Schwartz spent his last few months as a consultant to the league’s officiating department.

The Eagles need a proven defensive coordinator to fix a broken defense, and Pettine’s record is superior to those two.  It should not matter that Pederson has no prior relationship with Pettine because Pederson is such a coaching novice he has not had the opportunity to build the network needed to make a staff full of friends. He should go for the best available guy and then formulate a working friendship.

Pettine, 49, certainly is the best available, having rebuilt two defenses from scratch with both the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets. In Pettine’s four years as the Jets’ defensive coordinator, from 2009 through 2012, the team never finished worse than eighth in overall defense, sixth in yards per play, or ninth in scoring percentage. During his season in Buffalo, Pettine implemented an aggressive defense that set a franchise record with 57 sacks (second-most in the NFL) after finishing tied for 18th in the league with 36 in 2012.

Pettine is a huge name in the Philadelphian area as his father, also Mike Pettine, won 326 games and lost only 43 in 33 seasons as head coach at Central Bucks West in Doylestown, a town 30 miles north of the city. Pettine followed his father into coaching two suburban Philadelphia high schools, William Tennent and North Penn, turning losing situations into winning ones. After that, it was on to an NFL career.

Largely due to Johnny Manziel,  things did not work out in Cleveland for him, but his acumen to coach defensive football would be too valuable an asset for Pederson to pass up.