Meet the Coordinators

Vic Fangio, Kellen Moore and Michael Clay met with the media a couple of days ago. This was the first chance for us to hear from Fangio and Moore, two coaches who can help get this team back to being a title contender. Clay is the only returning coordinator, but he’ll have an interesting challenge with navigating the new kickoff rules.

The biggest takeaways for me was one word…experience. Fangio opened by talking about how he’s been coaching pro football for 40 years. Sean Desai was 40 years old when he ran the Eagles defense a year ago. That’s an astonishing difference. Kellen Moore talked about how he feels old now that he’s 35. Brian Johnson was 36 a year ago, but he’d only been in the NFL for a couple of years. Moore is entering his seventh season in the league as a coach (he had another six as a player) and this is his third team. Last year’s coordinators were doing as much learning as they were teaching. That won’t be the case this season.

Fangio isn’t a smooth, polished talker. He’s a no-nonsense coach who speaks his mind and isn’t going to BS you. He just feels like a defensive coordinator. Fangio didn’t say anything too much about scheme. He did stress the need to be versatile. Offenses are going to throw different things at a defense over the course of the season. That requires the defense to have different solutions. Fangio said he would throw a lot at his players. That way he can have a lot of different tools at his disposal during the season. He said he didn’t want something new coming their way in the middle of the season. He wanted them to be able to remember what they had practiced back in Training Camp.

There wasn’t a lot of talk about players. Fangio is still learning who his players are and needs to see what they can do. He mentioned Quinyon Mitchell being able to contribute quickly. That sure sounds like they are going to give him every chance to start. Fangio was asked about linebacker and it was interesting that he brought up Zack Baun. I had him pegged more as an OLB, but it sounds like they will give him a chance to play inside.

One of the most encouraging things for me came when Fangio talked about basics. He said he tells his players not to expect him to try to have the perfect call when the defense is struggling. He will go back to basics. That means a focus on the players and execution rather than some magic bullet. I think last year’s defense had problems in part because they kept looking for solutions rather than just focusing on the basics.

Fangio sure sounds like the coach this defense needs to get back to playing good football.

Moore is taking over one of the best offenses in the league so his situation is different. He’s got less to fix, but will still have a lot of pressure on him. Brian Johnson was trying to run Shane Steichen’s offense with Steichen there to help last year. Moore is here to combine his ideas with Nick Sirianni’s to create the best scheme for the 2024 Eagles.

Moore is excited to work with Jalen Hurts, who he mentioned as one of the best QBs in the league. Those two have to be on the same page, in terms of scheme and also approach. Moore brought over Doug Nussmeier to be the QBs coach. They have worked together for six years and have formed a tight bond. Moore and Nussmeier will present a unified message to Hurts. That’s critical. You don’t want coaches pulling the QB in different directions.

One of the reasons that Moore and Nussmeier work well together is that they each focus on different areas. Moore thinks more about scheme and philosophy. Nussmeier focuses on the QB position and all the details that go into that. The two of them complement each other well because they cover different parts of the same vision.

Pre-snap motion came up as a subject. Moore talked about the fact it is used for different reasons. The Eagles were dead last in motion in 2023. That won’t be the case this year. Moore understands it can be a valuable tool. I liked the fact he talked about how motion has to work in concert with the run game, the play-action game and the passing game. You don’t want a guy going in motion for the hell of it. That has to be part of your scheme and everything has to look the same for it to work well.

There were several questions about combining offenses. Moore didn’t seem to think that was a huge deal. A lot of offenses have similarities. You end up choosing the best of multiple playbooks and going with what works for the current personnel. Moore did say that getting the language right was important. You need everyone to be on the same page.

The word that stood out the most was “clean”. Moore wants a clean operation. He wants the QB to have a clean toolbox. He wants the language to be clean so the players can play fast. That sounds like a coach who has been part of different systems and has worked with different players. The most creative play in the world won’t work if it isn’t coached well. Players need a full understanding of the concept and their roles so they can execute at a high level.

Michael Clay got a ton of questions about the new kickoff rule. He sounds excited to see what will happen. We’ll have to wait and see if this benefits or hurts the Eagles. Clay spoke highly of Britain Covey as his punt returner, but said the team needed more depth and got it with Cooper DeJean and Ainias Smith. He mentioned that Will Shipley could be in the mix at KOR.

Clay was asked about guys who could be leaders this year. He mentioned Josh Jobe, Sydney Brown and Ben VanSumeren. I found that interesting. Jobe has an uphill battle to make the team. Brown could be a core STer and good leader. VanSumeren is now part of a crowd at LB, but he showed real promise as a rookie.

I came away feeling good about the coaches and the team. Fangio has learned a lot of lessons over the years. His experience is something this defense needs. Moore has had to combine offenses before so his task in Philly isn’t new to him. I think his ideas and creativity will mesh well with the offense from last year. He will have some new answers that the coaches didn’t last year. Clay has done a good job of developing special teams talent and should have his best group to work with this season.

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In Good Hands

Players come and go. Coaches, too. Teams have long term success based on ownership and the front office. The Eagles have been successful because Jeff Lurie is a good owner and Howie Roseman does a good job of running the team.

Our final top- and bottom-5 for NFL front offices@benbbaldwin
Top: Eagles, Ravens, Chiefs, Browns, Bills/Cowboys
Bottom: Saints, Texans, Seahawks, 49ers, Jets@KevinCole___
Top: Ravens, Colts, Eagles, Cardinals, Jaguars
Bottom: Saints, Panthers, Jets, Falcons, Giants https://t.co/4r3WUslt2Y

— Kevin Cole (@KevinCole___) May 8, 2024

Kevin and Ben are data and analytics guys. The Eagles were one of the first teams to embrace that side of things so it isn’t a surprise that they are highly regarded by those two.

The Eagles using data wouldn’t mean too much if they didn’t win games. They see this as a way to help the players and coaches. They hired Nick Sirianni in part because he was open to using data. Doug Pederson used that info to help the team win the Super Bowl in 2017. I still remember Cris Collinsworth being almost shocked when the Eagles went for it on fourth down late in the game. Those of us who had watched the team all season long knew it was a no-brainer.

Howie is masterful when it comes to moving up and down in the draft. You can disagree with his picks, but he almost always gets good value.

https://twitter.com/RichEisenShow/status/1785728361299615956

Howie does a lot of trading, all year round. He takes chances. Some work out (Darius Slay, CJ Gardner-Johnson) and some don’t (Robert Quinn, Golden Tate). The key thing is to learn from your mistakes and to keep trying. The Eagles don’t win the Super Bowl without trades for CB Ronald Darby and RB Jay Ajayi.

Drafting is complicated since that involves a lot of different people and circumstances. The Jalen Reagor pick was bad. No one disputes that. Getting Jalen Hurts in the second round made that shit sandwich easier to swallow. QBs are critical and hard to quantify in terms of value. Finding a star QB at pick 53 is very rare.

The last few draft classes show a lot of promise and the Eagles have a good amount of young talent in place. Time will tell us how good that talent is.

Finding talent is only part of the equation. You have to find a way to pay them. Credit for this goes to both Lurie and Howie. Lurie is willing to spend aggressively. Howie has hired terrific cap experts and they have allowed the Eagles to structure deals in the most beneficial way possible.

Will Laws over at SI.com had some thoughts on the Eagles and contracts.

Looking at that outsized figure made me wonder how much of this the Eagles have done. I knew they’d done at least some of it. Turns out, every big Philly deal has void years: Jalen Hurts ($97.55 million), DeVonta Smith ($35.78 million), Jordan Mailata ($35.6 million), Landon Dickerson ($35.09 million), Darius Slay ($24.94 million), Dallas Goedert ($23.83 million), Lane Johnson ($22.48 million), James Bradberry ($21.39 million), Josh Sweat ($16.39 million), Chauncey Gardner-Johnson ($13.76 million), Brandon Graham ($10.27 million), Jake Elliott ($8.61 million) and, of course, Brown.

By my math, those 13 contracts have more than $399 million in cap dollars moved into years that void at the end of those deals—and there’s more of that on shorter-term deals such as those the Eagles gave to Devin White and Zack Baun.

That’s a staggering figure, and it explains why Philly seems to have so much flexibility each year.

So, in practical terms, what does it mean?

First and foremost, and similar to New Orleans, it shows a very real commitment from ownership to winning, because all of that money being accounted for three and four and five years from now is matched with cash going out the door during the actual life of the deal. Indeed, last year, against a $224.8 million cap, the Eagles spent $257.2 million in cash, third league-wide behind only the Houston Texans and Baltimore Ravens. This year, Philly is one of two teams set to spend more than $300 million in cash (Cleveland is the other one).

All told, Philly could approach $600 million in player spending over a two-year span through which the cap is at $480.6 million. Again, it’s a tribute to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, because a lot of owners would not be willing to do that.

Second, that money doesn’t disappear against the cap. And this is where things get interesting. Because the figures have to be accounted for, the Eagles will walk a tightrope financially in offloading players at the right time (remember, the above numbers assume you see every deal through, and savings can be had if you cut ties early), spending on the right guys and drafting well to supplement years when more dead money is taken on.

In other words, GM Howie Roseman and the front office are gambling to win now, and that they’ll get a lot of things right going forward. Because a reckoning would come for them if they don’t.

There is risk in this approach, but it also gives you opportunities. That’s how you can afford to sign Saquon Barkley and star receivers and Bryce Huff and CJGJ and so on. Going for it on fourth down is a risk. So is this. When it is executed correctly, it gives the Eagles an advantage.

If you try to win playing by the same rules as everyone else, you better be incredibly good at picking players. The Eagles are smart enough to look for any edge they can get.

There are certainly things to be critical of when it comes to Lurie and Howie. Anyone owning or running a team is going to make mistakes and have some awkward moments. Those two get more right than wrong and that’s helped the Eagles to have a winning record in 6 of the past 7 years. They went to a pair of Super Bowls, winning one.

I’m really interested to see how the team does in 2024 after a miserable ending to 2023.

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