Losing Dennard Wilson Won't be Easy for the Eagles to Overcome
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Howie Roseman warned that changes were coming.
The Eagles’ GM was talking about the roster, though, when he said at the NFL Scouting Combine last week that it simply wasn’t possible to bring all his free agents back into the fold for another Super Bowl run.
He’d have to find another way.
Days later, reports emerged that the Browns, with the Eagles’ former Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator employed as the DC now in Cleveland, wants to make a run at Philly favorites Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox.
Roseman, however, didn’t prepare anyone for this latest bombshell.
Yes, you can call the loss of Dennard Wilson that.
It may have been expected that the Eagles’ DB coach/defensive passing game coordinator and the Eagles would part ways after head coach Nick Sirianni chose not to promote Wilson into the vacant defensive coordinator’s job and go outside the building with the hiring of Seattle’s Sean Desai.
There are two components to this:
First, the sting of losing him.
Second, who will replace him?
Perhaps, D.K. McDonald gets the nod.
He was Wilson's assistant the past two years, his first two professional coaching seasons after a career spent in college. Prior to joining the Eagles, he spent five years as Iowa State's cornerback coach for three seasons then two as the Cyclones' safeties coach.
Still, losing Wilson is going to hurt.
He had a big hand in helping the Eagles rank second in the league in overall defense and first in the league in pass defense, and he helped Darius Slay and James Bradberry find another level in their games.
He helped mold Marcus Epps into a competent starting safety who played all but a handful of snaps this past season. He shaped Avonte Maddox into one of the game’s top nickel corners.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was getting safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson to buy into the team's way of doing things after the Eagles acquired him last August.
“When we acquired him, the first conversation I had with him was, ‘CJ, you’re coming here and you’re going to have fit in and you’re going to have to earn your keep, but still be who you are as a person and still be who you are as a player, but it’s about the team, it’s about the unity, it’s about the chemistry we have to create together to be able to play as one,’” said Wilson during Super Bowl week.
It's no wonder Wilson had the support of his players.
He had their backs, and they had his.
His departure comes at a time when the Eagles already have to find a replacement for linebacker coach Nick Rallis, who bolted to be Jonathan Gannon’s DC in Arizona.
That’s on top of the nine key defensive players who played at least 15-plus snaps in the Super Bowl.
This team is going to look a lot different on defense in 2023 than it did this year.
Maybe that’s part of the plan.
Rather than keeping the Super Bowl window open by more or less running it back for two years, as they did after winning Super Bowl LII, the Eagles are going to try a different approach – different players on defense and different defensive coaches – to stage another Super Bowl run.
Certainly, there are enough pieces of offense to make that happen.
It’s the defense that will be the big question mark as the offseason deepens.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
