Well, the Eagles have hired a new head coach. Former Colts offensive coordinator and Frank Reich protégé Nick Sirianni will be the man tasked with turning Carson Wentz’s career around and getting the Eagles back into the playoffs.
If you ask most Eagles fans how they feel about the hire, the majority will probably tell you, “I’m just glad it wasn’t Josh McDaniels.” Since the hire, I haven’t talked to one fan who’s actually excited for what Sirianni brings to the table, and it’s really not hard to see why.
The current power structure within the Eagles organization doesn’t lend itself to having a strong minded head coach. Howie Roseman is going to have the final say on every personnel decision, and Jeffrey Lurie is going to ensure Roseman continues to have that power. That’s why the organization’s coaching search came down to Sirianni and McDaniels, while candidates like Brian Daboll, Lincoln Riley, and Eric Bieniemy all reportedly weren’t interested.
Sirianni didn’t get any other interviews for vacant head coaching positions this offseason. Most fans had to do a Google search to find out who he even was. He wasn’t a top candidate around NFL circles, so when this opportunity presented itself to him, it’s no surprise he jumped at the opportunity.
McDaniels didn’t have any other interviews this offseason either. His reputation is tarnished from his time in Denver and him walking away from the Colts job after he was hired. Again, he wasn’t a good candidate, but the Eagles were forced into interviewing him because they didn’t have any other options.
No head coaching candidate with a clear vision for the future of the Eagles was going to get this job, unless it involved fixing Carson Wentz.
Doug Pederson is a well respected coach around the NFL. When some of these top candidates saw the way the organization tossed him aside after their quarterback — who was the worst starting quarterback in football this past season — said he couldn’t work with him anymore, of course they weren’t going to take this job. Why would they thrust themselves into a situation where your voice is the least valued, even though you’re the guy coaching the team everyday and putting in the most work.
Sirianni took this job because it was likely the only head coaching offer he was going to get for a few years. He wasn’t chosen by Lurie and Roseman because they have some secret intel that the rest of the league doesn’t have on the guy. They settled for who they thought was the best candidate out of the small corner of potential coaches they had to choose from. And that corner of coaches was so small because of the way this organization has conducted business recently.
There’s always a chance this hire does actually work out, and of course I’ll be rooting for that outcome. But I’m not going to sit here and act like everything’s going to work out when we know a meddling owner/GM almost never leads to success on the field. Until that power structure changes, I don’t see the product on the field changing either.
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