Closing In?

Posted: January 19th, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 1 Comment »

The Eagles didn’t even get to talk to Brandon Staley on Monday. The Chargers hired him on Sunday night, keeping the young defensive guru in Los Angeles. The Eagles did meet with a couple of candidates and one seems to be the front runner at this point.

Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels talked to the Eagles at great length on Sunday. He flew down to Florida and had an all-day interview with Jeff Lurie and several other members of the organization. By all accounts, the meeting went well.

The buzz in the media is that McDaniels is now the leading candidate. Here is a nugget from Jimmy Bama.

“Update: Based on information PhillyVoice has gathered, McDaniels is the frontrunner to land the Eagles’ head coaching job.”

And…

https://twitter.com/JClarkNBCS/status/1351210842637955081

Is this a good thing? Yes, if McDaniels has truly learned lessons from his failure in Denver and the Colts fiasco.

McDaniels became the coach of the Broncos at age 33. That’s insane. I knew how to tie my shoes and pay the cable bill at 33, but I wasn’t ready to run an NFL team. And neither was McDaniels. He started off 6-0 and then went 5-17 the next year and a half. That led to his firing.

The problem wasn’t brains or X’s and O’s. McDaniels was fine there. He had horrible people skills and an ego the size of the Rocky Mountains. McDaniels firing caused him to do a lot of introspective thinking and he seems to be a changed man at this point.

As for the Colts situation, that was just a couple of years ago and it really is hard to understand that. Assistant coaches joined his staff and then McDaniels backed out of his agreement to be the coach of the Colts. That left assistants in some tough spots. I would hammer McDaniels on that situation and really dig for an honest answer. We don’t know anything publicly, but he might give the right answer behind closed doors.

Failing at Denver is fine. Plenty of coaches have been significantly better in their second job than the first. That was a long time ago and his mistakes were pretty obvious. You just have to find out if he’s truly a changed man or if that’s just an image. As Jeff McLane mentioned in a tweet above, the Eagles have to do their homework to see what is reality and what is just lip service from McDaniels. If he’s changed, the people around the league will know. Coaches talk. Players talk. People know who the jerks are.

From a football standpoint, McDaniels makes a lot of sense. The Eagles want an offensive coach and that’s his background. He did great things with Tom Brady, but also worked well with young QBs like Matt Cassell, Jimmy Garropolo and Jacoby Brissett. McDaniels believes in a versatile offense and has won with a variety of personnel.

One key question would be his staff choices. Would McDaniels load up on Pats coaches? Ideally, you would want him to bring in a mixture of different ideas and backgrounds. No one has had success when trying to build a different version of New England. There are plenty of lessons and ideas to take from the Patriots, but Bill Belichick is a freak. Do not try to copy him. You will fail, as McDaniels learned in Denver.

We’ll see if anything comes of this meeting. The Eagles talked about being patient in their search. Is it possible there is a coach left in the playoffs that they want to talk to? Are they still working on Lincoln Riley?

Brian Daboll removed his name from consideration. We don’t know if that means he didn’t want the job or if he heard behind the scenes that he was no longer a serious candidate. Daboll both fascinated and scared me. His track record is highly questionable, but he did such an amazing job this season with the Buffalo offense and Josh Allen that I think you had to take a close look at him.

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Is McDaniels our only hope? No, there is another, as Yoda once said.

Bowles coached in Philly in 2012. Lurie and Roseman might like him. Like McDaniels, Bowles didn’t fare well in his first stint as a head coach. That was with the Jets and no one wins there consistently. Bowles has done a good job with the Tampa defense the past two years and has the team in the NFC title game right now. He is a good DC. Is he meant to be a head coach again?

I think the interview would be key for him. Bowles would need to share a smart plan for the kind of offense he wanted and who would run it. A lot of defensive coaches want to run the ball and avoid turnovers. That’s not good enough in the modern game.

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One Comment on “Closing In?”

  1. 1 Chiefs’ Andy Reid believes Eric Bieniemy should… said at 9:53 AM on January 19th, 2021:

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