Eagles' Sean Desai a Cultural Fit, Ready to Uphold Nick Sirianni's Standard
PHILADELPHIA – Imagine being Sean Desai.
Just a few weeks after being hired as the Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator, his general manager, Howie Roseman, drafts him a stud defensive tackle in Jalen Carter, an athletic edge rusher in Nolan Smith, and a ferocious-tackling safety in Sydney Brown.
And for good measure, Roseman throws in a traits-gifted cornerback in Kelee Ringo and a versatile defensive tackle in Moro Ojomo.
It’s gotta feel like Christmas morning again and Desai is still 10 years old.
Sure, there were some losses on that side of the ball. But Desai wasn’t around when T.J. Edwards and Kyzir White were leading the team in tackles last season and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson was leading the league in interceptions, and Javon Hargrave was doing his karate-kick sack celebration after posting a career-high 11 sacks.
All those players are gone, so this is Desai’s show now and he has some new toys to play with.
“The big thing that we've got to remind ourselves, and we're talking about it with the players also, is every year is a new chapter, and past predictors don't necessarily indicate future success in this league and really in any industry,” Desai said.
“So, we've got to make sure we take that mindset that we start from the bottom again and build this foundation and build this thing from the ground up.”
For Desai, it’s more than just the players he has been given and the ones who are returning on his side of the football.
It’s about something the Eagles have done an excellent job of crafting something that really began with Doug Pederson and has been taken to another level with Nick Sirianni, and that is culture.
“I will say this: It (the Eagles’ hiring process) was the most thorough process I have ever been a part of, and I say that because I think that's a credit to the people in this organization and the way they don't let anybody come into this culture that doesn't fit it,” Desai said about being hired to replace Jonathan Gannon.
“The culture here is tremendous. We just talked about the foundation and everything. I mentioned this to the defense in my first unit meeting is obviously the foundation here was awesome last year. We've got to give credit. The foundation for the Philadelphia Eagles' defense has been awesome for a long time, and one of the quotes that Nick uses is ‘the standard is the standard.’
“We're upholding that standard. We're looking to achieve it.”
Desai said that the culture is something that perhaps he took for granted during recent stops in Chicago with the Bears and Seattle with the Seahawks.
“You have guys like BG, Fletch, Slay, JB – the latter two have been in different organizations; the first two, you want to talk about setting the standard, they set it from 10, 12, 14 years ago,” Desai said. “They've done a tremendous job in making sure that standard doesn't slip through the waves of the NFL.
“That's the standard that we're going to uphold. We're going to make sure we honor those guys and make sure that we can keep raising the standards as the league requires you to.”
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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