Eagles QB Coach Moving On; Nick Sirianni's Clout Fading?
PHILADELPHIA - The ecosystem surrounding Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts will be drastically different next season.
After a 10-1 start turned into a descent into misery the Eagles quickly moved on from first-year offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and it’s now confirmed that quarterbacks coach Alex Tanney will be moving on.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler first reported that Tanney had gotten permission “to explore other coaching opportunities” from the Eagles, a positive spin on the reality that Philadelphia doesn’t want Tanney back, something an NFL source confirmed to SI.com’s Eagles Today.
None of this should be a surprise after head coach Nick Sirianni essentially explained his marching orders from owner Jeffrey Lurie earlier this week.
Soon to be former Eagles QB coach Alex Tanney.
John McMullen/Eagles Today
“I just think that right now we just need to bring some ideas in from the outside,” Sirianni claimed. “We need to bring a guy in with new ideas that's not part of this family of coaches. I think that's an important thing. Or even if it is from the family of coaches that has been somewhere else -- it could be any of that.
“That's important. That's important because that's important that you're making sure you always evolve.”
It’s conceivable that Sirianni had a personal epiphany regarding that evolution. Still, it's not exactly the betting favorite for an offensive-minded head coach originally hired for that expertise to figuratively throw up his hands and admit he needs “fresh ideas.”
To anyone who knows Sirianni, it’s not even reasonable to claim anything other than the current path forward being a directive from Lurie.
In fact, Sirianni took immense pride in his fledgling coaching tree after both 2022 coordinators got head-coaching jobs, Shane Steichen in Indianapolis and Jonathan Gannon in Arizona.
The Eagles coach's plan, particularly on the offensive side, was to coach his coaches and create a self-sustaining pipeline for promotion. Sirianni often cited Tanney, 36, as a rising star on his staff, who first joined Sirianni in 2021 as a quality control coach fresh off a decade in the league and his final season with the New York Giants.
By 2022, Tanney was the assistant quarterbacks coach under Johnson, working day-to-day with Hurts, and then took over the positional coach role when Johnson was promoted to replace Steichen.
Life moves fast in the NFL.
The Eagles’ offense was so good in 2022 that many saw Johnson as a potential one-and-done candidate at OC and leaving for a head-coaching position. In that world, it’s not farfetched to think Tanney may have been the OC by Year 4 of his coaching career.
Now both are unemployed, although the expectations are that will change soon.
"The feeling I'm getting [from the Eagles] is that Tanney and Brian didn't adjust to the leadership part of it after being elevated," a league source from outside the NovaCare Complex told SI.com's Eagles Today.
In the rush to perhaps shield Hurts' regression the word "disaster" was directed at Tanney, a 180 from the way Sirianni has always spoken about his padawan.
“He is super smart, super intelligent. He connects with the players,” Sirianni said of Tanney in the spring of 2023. “Playing for ten years in the NFL, he has this instant connection there. He’s really worked to get everything he has. I really admire that in Alex.”
The early line on Tanney around the league is that he’s likely to join Steichen’s staff with the Colts if no other options unveil themselves in the coming weeks, an indication that “the family” still values the young coach and that the criticism directed toward Tanney is coming from family outsiders overstepping their job descriptions.
