Eagles Felt Loyalty was a Doug Pederson Problem with Assistants
PHILADELPHIA - One of the more interesting aspects of the change in coaching regimes with the Eagles is the difference in autonomy when it comes to assistant coaches.
The Philadelphia front office always seemed to have its eye on Doug Pederson, the Super Bowl-winning coach, yet is now letting the rookie mentor, 39-year-old Nick Sirianni, steer the ship when it comes to assistants with the notable exception of offensive line coach and perhaps run game coordinator Jeff Stoutland, the Eagles' most valued assistant.
To date, Sirianni got his first choices at offensive and defensive coordinator respectively in Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon, brought along a new passing game coordinator from Indianapolis in Kevin Patullo, and netted defensive line coach Tracy Rocker from Auburn.
Sirianni worked with Steichen with the Chargers and got to know Gannon with the Colts, who in turn forged a relationship with Rocker in Tennessee. In other words, the typical networking that happens in the 31 other NFL cities.
Long-time well-regarded Pederson assistants Duce Staley and Dave Fipp are moving on, the former already earmarked for Detroit under its new head coach Dan Campbell and the latter likely to follow, while Press Taylor, the former PC coordinator/quarterbacks coach and the hill Pederson ultimately died on, was told to kick rocks.
READ MORE: Duce Staley Moving on to Lions after 10 Years as an Eagles ...
Already gone were former DC Jim Schwartz, off to contemplate retirement, and senior offensive assistant Rich Scangarello, who was thrown under the bus on his way out the door for wanting Jalen Reagor instead of Justin Jefferson in the 2020 draft before finding the soft landing back in San Francisco with legitimate offensive guru Kyle Shanahan.
Tight ends coach Justin Peelle got the same gig under new Atlanta coach Arthur Smith, and assistant defensive line coach Nathan Ollie, has the same title with the New York Jets under Robert Saleh, while two more Pederson assistants are also possibly headed for retirement in linebackers coach Ken Flajole and senior offensive consultant Marty Mornhinweg.
If you're reading this, you have a better chance of being named to the coaching staff than former defensive line coach/run defensive coordinator Matt Burke or ex-passing game analyst Andrew Breiner has of being retained, a pair of mentors also sullied by Pederson's desire to promote them, in Burke’s case as the replacement for Schwartz as the DC and Breiner being tabbed for QB coach once Taylor was to be elevated to OC.
On the surface, it sounds silly that the only SB-winning coach in franchise history would be given a shorter leash than a rookie in Sirianni who never set foot into the NovaCare Complex until Monday morning.
So we at SI.com's EaglesMaven dove into why and were given two different explanations by team sources, one at least a little more credible than the next.
The more honest answer is that the Eagles felt one of Pederson's faults as a coach was his inability to manage assistants well and his loyalty to those assistants with the claim being he could never honestly assess when they were failing.
Where that takes at least a bit of a hit from the organization's perspective is with a guy like Taylor who was brought into the fold before Pederson returned and kept in the transition from Chip Kelly to Pederson with many tabbing him as a future star in the profession.
Only when Taylor became a Pederson protege and Jeffrey Lurie needed a scapegoat did Taylor become stained by his boss rather than championed by the organization.
Former offensive coordinator Mike Groh and ex-receivers coach Carson Walch were the 2019 version of Taylor, scapegoats that the organization believed Pederson was too loyal to and unable to objectively realize they were failing.
The second and far more counter-intuitive notion was that Pederson didn't have the contacts to put together the type of staff the Eagles would have liked while Sirianni has a much more varied pool of candidates to choose from due to his stints in Kansas City, San Diego/Los Angeles and Indy.
To be fair, that kind of illogical thinking is more a league-wide coaching problem where transiency is regarded as a badge of honor and almost a rite of passage no matter how silly the thought of sustained success under one of the greatest coaches of all-time and steady promotions from quality control, QB coach and then OC is somehow twisted into less than being a rolling stone.
Was Pederson supposed to quit or get fired to gain more contacts?
And why couldn't he have met capable coaching candidates during his 13 seasons as a player or perhaps in places like the Senior Bowl, the combine, or the Pro Day circuit?
The difference for Sirianni is twofold: his background and the Honeymoon phase.
The former is baked-in to the league’s regressive thinking and the latter will at some point be replaced by the same scapegoat phase Pederson had to deal with after the 2019 and 2020 seasons.
John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John every Tuesday and Thursday on "The Middle" with Eytan Shander, Harry Mayes, and Barrett Brooks on SportsMap Radio and PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of Extending the Play on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Ed Kracz is the publisher of EagleMaven. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
