For Washburn, switch from Tennessee to Philly is nothing but good

New Eagles defensive line coach Jim Washburn says he was looking for a change, and that is what led him to leave the Tennessee Titans after 12 seasons.

Washburn was not made available to the Philadelphia media Wednesday after his hiring was announced, at his request, the Eagles said. He reluctantly agreed to an interview with Jim Wyatt, of the Tennessean in Nashville, yesterday.

Washburn wanted to make it clear that he left with no hard feelings or regrets, and that he was eager to get going with the Eagles.

"I need to get invigorated a little bit," he said. "It wasn't anything in particular, I just thought it was just about time. It is no reflection on the state of the Titans or anything. As a matter of fact, the Titans having the troubles is the one thing that made me want to stay. It almost kept me here. I'd like to be with them to fight their way back to the top. So I don't want it to look like I am running out."

An avid hunter and fisherman who loves to spend time with his grandchildren and wants to own a farm, Washburn, 61, also said he is not close to retirement.

"I want to have a life after I quit football, not just be known as Coach Wash," he said. "But all that will come one day. Right now, I want to coach 5 or 6 more years, and I think I can coach as well as I've ever coached. I know I'm going to coach as hard as I can coach, I promise you that."

The Eagles - and the Titans, before them - were aware, an Eagles source said, that Washburn once served 3 months in a halfway house for his involvement in a 1988 steroids scandal at the University of South Carolina. He also served 3 years on probation. Washburn and two other coaches were alleged to have played roles in procuring steroids and in designing workout programs for players taking steroids. A fourth coach was acquitted in a trial.

That matter did not come up in the Tennessean interview.

Washburn added he has no "buyer's remorse" about leaving the Titans.

"Everyone is trying to read different things into it, but I have choices and I feel good about it," he said. "I am not going to be ugly about anything. I want to leave here with a clean break and don't want to have any sour grapes, and I shouldn't. It was a really good 12 years, most of them anyway. Maybe 1 or 2 of them [stunk], but I enjoyed it.

"I was frustrated when we didn't play good. But my contract is up. So I don't understand how anyone could fault me. Life is about choices. No one is going to put me on a guilt trip, because I went over there and worked as hard as I could every day and I enjoyed every minute of it. Now I just wanted to do something a little different."

Daily News sports writer Les Bowen contributed to this report.