Brian Johnson's Role Defined by Nick Sirianni

PHILADELPHIA — There was one interesting piece of information revealed when it comes to the 2021 Eagles quarterback situation during Nick Sirianni's introductory press conference Friday but it had nothing to do with Carson Wentz or Jalen Hurts.

The role of Brian Johnson, the 33-year-old quarterback coach who will be tasked with either repairing Wentz, furthering the development of Hurts, or both if the Eagles move forward with a true QB competition this summer, might be a little more important than the average position coach.

Johnson, the former QB coach and offensive coordinator at the University of Florida, will be embarking on his first job at the professional level and it's arguably the most important one on Sirianni's staff as the day-to-day mechanic for signal-callers who need more than a little work on the fundamentals.

Johnson's job description is much broader than that per Sirianni.

"We hired a coach in Indianapolis when we first got there," Sirianni explained. "We hired a college offensive coordinator Tom Manning, and the things that he brought to us to open up our offense a little bit more, really that we still run to this day, really helped us become harder to defend."

Manning left Iowa State for the Colts in 2018 and quickly returned to college but his influence remained throughout the three years Sirianni interned under Frank Reich in Indianapolis.

"(Manning's ideas) helped us fit our players," said Sirianni. "This player fits this scheme from the college game. And that was really, really important to us in our first year, and the years moving forward in Indianapolis."

Sirianni sees Johnson, who once recruited Hurts when the QB coach was at Mississippi State, with a similar influence for the Eagles.

"I see Brian as that same (type of coach)," Sirianni said. "You know again Brian, great human being, great person. Great, fundamentally, great scheme-wise, he's just super sharp.

"And then on top of that, it gives us the ability to take some things from the college game to make our offense, just become a little more difficult to defend."

As you might imagine the quarterback position as a whole was placed front and center in front of Sirianni throughout his first presser.

And the new Eagles coach didn't have a lot of answers, not surprising since the former Indianapolis offensive coordinator has been on the job for less than a week.

In many ways, Sirianni got a crash course in what Doug Pederson endured for five seasons - being the voice of a franchise without the power to speak on major issues.

In the case of Wentz, neither the organization nor the player himself knows the plan moving forward but Sirianni sure as heck had to stand up and address it, paying the price for the fool-hearted who actually believed some clarity was coming.

“Nick, did you take this job with the stipulation or expectation that Carson Wentz is your quarterback next season?” one reporter asked before following with the natural baked-in follow-up. “And if so, what’s your plan to get the most out of him?”

To be fair this is a no-win situation for everyone. The media has to ask the obvious questions to a man who's got no idea right now.

“I took this job because what a great organization this is, and the plan here is that we have to go through a lot of things here,” he said. “We’re getting our coaching staff in place. We’re getting that in place so we can get the best people in here as coaches, and what we need to do is evaluate the entire roster."

Johnson will no doubt be involved in that evaluation process.

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.

Add us as a preferred source on Google