Eagles' Nick Sirianni Owns Sean Mannion Hire -- Letting New OC Do His Thing

PHILADELPHIA – When the Philadelphia Eagles tabbed the 33-year-old Sean Mannion as their new offensive coordinator, it raised plenty of eyebrows around the NFL.

Mannion, a former longtime backup quarterback turned Packers quarterbacks coach is three years off his playing career, and has just one year as a position coach with no play-calling experience.

For a team with Super Bowl aspirations and a gifted roster, handing the keys to a virtual novice in a football-frenzied market feels like a potential disaster.

However, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni made it clear: this isn't about tossing Mannion into the deep end of the pool and hoping he swims. It's about buying low on a stock with a high upside and building something together.

"We're gonna go through everything together as a football team," Sirianni explained when discussing the the hire in advance of training camp.

The idea of handing complete offensive “autonomy” to Mannion is just that.

Owning It

Jun 9, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni speaks with the media before a Minicamp session at Jefferson Health Training Complex. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

"Everything on that field has my name on it, and we're gonna go through everything,” said Sirianni. “That's offense, defense, special teams, the way the tackling is, the way the ball security is, everything. So we're gonna go through everything together."

Sirianni isn’t shy on stepping in as a CEO coach but stressed that he hired Mannion to do a job.

If everything runs smoothly, great. If not, part of Sirianni’s job is coaching his coaches.

Mannion is supposed to bring fresh ideas from his time in the Shanahan-style system in Green Bay, along with 11 total years of NFL experience as a player and coach under similarly-styled mentors like Sean McVay, Kevin O'Connell and Matt LaFleur.

Still, Sirianni knows there's plenty of value in leaning on what's already worked in Philadelphia with quarterback Jalen Hurts.

"I hired [Mannion] to do a job, but we'd be crazy not to go say, here's what we're doing and we did a lot of different things of how we went through things, and like the way we called things and everything like that," Sirianni continued. "But we'd be crazy not to do some of the things that we've been successful at that maybe he hasn't done in the past."

Mannion called that a “blended” approach in the spring.

Sirianni has set up his own role as a flexible one — with the idea to jump in wherever needed, whether that's setting culture in team meetings, helping the defense, tweaking special teams, or supporting the offense where he jumped in significantly last season.

"I think that flexibility is huge to be able to do and to be able to have in this seat that I'm in right now," he said.

It's also an approach that seems especially tailored to ease Mannion's transition.

The spring highlighted Mannion's intense work ethic as the kind of coach who beats his boss to the Jefferson Health Training Complex every morning and drove through a snowstorm rather than miss time in his new job.

Sirianni, meanwhile, put Mannion on the spot with game-like scenarios in OTAs and minicamp to get him as ready as possible for the play-calling duties. That will continue this summer when training camo begins with the first practice on July 29.

Growing pains should be expected as Eagles blend new concepts with proven staples. But the message from Sirianni is a pragmatic one: Mannion isn’t flying alone, the young coach will have all the support he needs to reach his ceiling as an offensive mind.

“It's the greatest team sport there is,” Sirianni noted. “We're all working together for the greater good of our football team."

Add us as a preferred source on Google