Inexperience Could be the Major Concern with New Eagles Staff
PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles finally made it official on Sunday morning, naming former Indianapolis offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni as their head coach.
A first-timer set to turn 40 in June, Sirianni will bring on a rookie defensive coordinator as well in Jonathan Gannon, the Colts' former secondary coach who is in his mid-30s and cut his NFL teeth in stints with Mike Zimmer in Minnesota and Matt Eberflus with Indy.
Meanwhile, the leader in the clubhouse for OC is Shane Steichen, a 35-year-old whose first work as an OC came as the interim choice with the Chargers after Ken Whisenhunt was fired in 2019 which ultimately developed into the full-time gig in 2020.
With the move from Anthony Lynn to Brandon Staley in LA, Steichen is on the market and has ties with Sirianni due to their time together with the Chargers.
That's the expected nucleus of the Philadelphia coaching staff in arguably the toughest media market in the country when it comes to scrutiny and the local NFL team.
That’s an alarming lack of experience - on the surface at least.
One theme in NFL coaching circles recently has been pairing the young hotshot that's in-demand with a crafty-old veteran who understands the enormity of the job and can be used as a sounding board.
The best example of this is also in Los Angeles where the Rams hired offensive wunderkind Sean McVay 11 days before he was set to turn 31, the youngest head coach in the NFL's modern era.
The Rams, however, made sure to pair McVay with defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, then 69, who had been through the wars as a head coach in New Orleans, Denver, Buffalo, Dallas, and Houston when you count interim stints and had been coordinating pro defenses for over 25 years.
Only after McVay got his feet under himself in the big chair did Phillips move on to Staley.
The theme surfaced in plenty of other places as well, most notably right here in Philadelphia when Doug Pederson was paired with Jim Schwartz as a rookie head coach, another long-time DC who also was a former head coach in Detroit.
In Chicago young gun Matt Nagy was given Vic Fangio, an almost 30-year DC who is now a head coach with Denver.
Tune into Championship Sunday and the NFC favorite Green Bay Packers feature an innovative offensive head coach from the McVay tree, Matt LaFleur, who inherited defensive chief Mike Pettine, the former head coach in Cleveland.
There is a lot of antiquated thinking when it comes to the coaching profession as a whole so following groupthink should hardly be regarded as dogma but the veteran coach-whisperer is an approach that has seemed to work.
There are other avenues to get there. Long-time offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland will be back and he’ll serve as nice counsel for Sirianni but former assistant head coach Duce Staley and special teams coordinator Dave Fipp are looking at the door.
The other candidate for OC is Broncos RB coach Curtis Modkins, a 50-year-old teaching veteran who has been an OC under Chip Kelly in San Francisco and with Buffalo in the early 2010s.
If the Eagles move forward with the Sirianni-Gannon-Steichen plan coming off the only Super Bowl era in franchise history, however, expect some significant growing pains.
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.
