Nick Sirianni, Kellen Moore Enter Spotlight on Day 8 of Eagles Coaching Search
The Eagles job search rounded the corner and is now heading into Week 2.
Some highlights to emerge on Tuesday, the eighth day of the search, were interviews with two offensive coordinators, the Colts’ Nick Sirianni and the Cowboys’ Kellen Moore, and the scheduling of another interview on Wednesday, this one with Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen.
There was also a report that the Eagles requested an interview with Dallas special team coordinator John Fassel.
The Eagles seemed ready to hire New England offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, and still might, with reports on that happening on Tuesday had reached full boil a day earlier. From the looks of things, bringing McDaniels in to replace Doug Pederson, who was fired on Jan. 11, has been put on the back burner for now.
Interviewing Allen would make him the 10th known candidate to meet with the search party of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, team president Don Smolenski, and general manager Howie Roseman, among others.
Exactly what it is the Eagles are looking for in this exhaustive, turn-over-every-stone search isn’t exactly clear, because the hunt seems so very random, with a new name surfacing each day.
And there is very little commonality with the names associated with the job, with a mix of 30-somethings to 40-somethings from coaches who have coordinated defenses to those who have coordinated offenses and special teams, too.
The meandering approach opens speculation that Lurie was caught off guard by having to look for a new coach. Perhaps the owner went into last week’s meeting with Pederson expecting the coach to acquiesce once again when it came time to picking assistant coaches.
Instead, Pederson put his foot down, leaving Lurie little choice but to move on. That would explain the week delay from the time the regular season ended to the time Pederson was actually removed.
In 2016, before Pederson was hired, the Eagles interviewed six candidates. They had fired Chip Kelly with a week left in the 2015 regular season, so Lurie knew he would be in the market for a coach, leading to a search that seemed more coordinated, more focused.
It sure seems like the Eagles are looking for the same kind of coach Pederson was, a leader of men, a play-caller, a winner – with the exception being his inability to repair what appears to have been a fractured relationship with quarterback Carson Wentz.
Lurie has done a great job with two of the four head coaching hires he has made since taking ownership of the team more than 20 years ago, landing future Hall of Famer Andy Reid and Doug Pederson, who won a Super Bowl.
He whiffed badly on Chip Kelly, but even his first hire, Ray Rhodes, turned out reasonably well, with Rhodes winning coach of the year honors after his first season in which he won a playoff game and took the team to the playoffs in his second season before ending his four-year run with a 29-34-1 record.
So, there’s that.
Sooner or later, though, the search party has to decide who will coach their team, because there are plenty of other looming decisions that need to be made involving personnel and salary cap reduction.
For now, bring on Day 9.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of EagleMaven. Check out anything you may have missed pertaining to the Eagles by going to www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
