Adam Caplan on the Coaching Search

Posted: January 8th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 40 Comments »

Bo Wulf interviewed Adam Caplan for PE.com on the coaching situation and Adam offered a few nuggets of interest.

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* Penn State fans will be happy to know that Caplan thinks Bill O’Brien will stay at PSU for a long time.  Caplan never thought BOB had interest in leaving, but that his agent wanted him to look around since his stock wouldn’t get much higher.

* Caplan says the Eagles never made a contract offer to Chip Kelly.  Caplan made it sound like the 9-hour meeting was a mixture of the Eagles selling Kelly on the job, but also the Eagles figuring out if he is the guy they would hire.

Just today I heard a rumor (and I stress “rumor”) that the Eagles were a bit nervous with some of Kelly’s answers about putting together a coaching staff and his thoughts on defense at the NFL level.  No idea if that’s actually true.

* Caplan says he’s heard nothing about Mike Zimmer and the Eagles.  Also made Mike Nolan sound like a longshot.

* No real insight on Mike McCoy.

* Caplan likes Bruce Arians. Thinks he deserves a shot with some team (didn’t push for Eagles to hire him).

* Caplan said pretty good things about Jay Gruden.  Question isn’t if he becomes a HC, but when.

* Bo Wulf asked for a time frame with the situation and Caplan said he would expect the Eagles to start doing some 2nd interviews as early as the end of the week.  Obviously the team still needs to meet with Gruden, Arians, and Gus Bradley.  Hopefully they can get that done in the next few days.  Caplan made it sound like a decision could come some time next week.  Obviously that’s just a prediction.  There are too many moving parts in this situation for anyone to know how it will play out right now.

* * * * *

Sorry the site went into italics on Monday.  No idea what happened.  Probably Bobby April’s fault.

_

  • SteveH

    Lets goooo Mike Zimmer. My dark horse candidate.

  • D3Keith

    My limited web experience tells me it’s always a dropped tag. You can take 30 minutes to comb through the html to find a three-second fix.

    • http://www.facebook.com/rob.cabacungan.7 Rob Cabacungan

      Tommy: The problem is an &lti&gt tag after the #wrapper div. If you can’t find the specific html to edit, it is also possible to work around by adding the following line to the css (e.g., style.css):

      #wrapper > i { font-style: normal; }

  • http://twitter.com/3amDan Dan

    The italics are clearly a sign from the football gods. We are hiring an Italian coach.

    Combing through the records, these are the viable candidates:

    1) Tedy Bruschi

    Has the heart and leadership. Zero experience. He’s really bad on TV, so that makes him about as good as a candidate as Andy Reid.

    2) Joe Flacco

    The player-coach stuff doesn’t happen anymore and it’s an intriguing possibility and fits the “innovative” requirements Lurie specified. Of course, being that Flacco plays for another team makes it all the more innovative.

    3) Mike Belotti

    Well, the Oregon well didn’t turn out so well for ole Chipster, but why not take his predecessor, the man who hired him? He’s the true genius, after all: he figured out how to win with Joey Harrington.

    4) Vince Papale

    Disney. Movie. Waiting. To. Happen. Again.

    5) Vince Lombardi

    Sure, he’s dead. Better than nothing, right?

    • TommyLawlor

      Genius. Can’t argue with the Bruschi logic.

      Don Corleone for GM. “Mr Jairus Byrd…here’s our contract offer. Either your signature or your brains will be on that contract. What’s it gonna be?”

      • D3FB

        But then we will promote Fredo to DC :(

        • Average__Joseph

          No way, Fredo would definitely be Special teams coach; Luca Brasi would be the Defensive Coordinator. Do you thinnk we would have had any problems with Babin or Wash if Luca was on the sideline as DC?

          • Average__Joseph

            When asked if he has the background and knowlwdge to be a successful ST coach Fredo replied, “I’m smart, I’m not dumb like everyone says, I’m smart!”
            DC Luca Brasi could not be reached for comments.

      • GermanEagle

        Don’t get my hopes up for Jairus Byrd…!!!

      • xeynon

        Somebody on another Eagles site, in pushing for Gus Bradley, referred to him as Gus Fring. As another commenter said, he’s definitely a disciplinarian, but killing players who step out of line may not be as viable an approach in the NFL as it is in the TV meth business. I have to think, though, if we’re going consider fictional criminals in our search he’s got to be near the top of the list. He and Corleone could be a management dream team to rival Young/Parcells, Wolf/Holmgren, and Casserly/Gibbs.

  • Baloophi

    SENIOR BOWL CHALLENGE SUCCESS!

    Kudos to all those who participated in the Senior Bowl Fundraising Challenge! We met our goal of at least 15 donations, so now Tommy can travel to Mobile in an aircraft and not concealed in the back of an unheated horse trailer. Those planning on coming within a five foot radius of Tommy at the Senior Bowl thank you.

    If you didn’t get a chance to make a donation yet, I’m sure a contribution in any amount will go a long way towards helping Tommy both with his Senior Bowl trip as well as with Iggles Blitz maintenance.

    Thanks again, and Dallas sucks!

    ******************
    SENIOR BOWL ALL-STARS
    (please let me know if I’ve left anyone off so I can update the list)

    dropscience
    Glenn Jaffe
    P_P_K
    aerochrome2
    A_T_G
    Michael Winter Cho
    D3FB
    Stephen Bonanni
    HoneyGratz
    CMR80
    Jeppe Elmelund van Ee
    Jack Bauer
    ShadyCrockett
    Anders
    Dirty Harry
    JulzPE
    moreinthemiddle
    Arby1
    Westport_Johnny
    damccomas
    aceandson

    • A Roy

      For a while, I thought our donations were wasted on italics instead of covering Tommy’s beer and funyons at the Senior Bowl.

      • TommyLawlor

        Italics aren’t cheap!!!

    • TommyLawlor

      Thank you, everyone.

  • Eagles_Fan_in_San_Fran

    Regarding the italics mix-up:

    You just need to put your fonts in a better position to succeed next time.

    • Cliff

      Time is yours.

    • Davesbeard

      It starts with Tommy as the head blogger, it’s his responsibility to get his fonts ready to play. It’s all on him.

      • http://www.facebook.com/xbcsmith Brett Smith

        We saw an opportunity using the slant. When you fall behind sometimes you abandon the run…

    • bdbd20

      We’re fine there. When the normal font is out, we expect that the italics to step up and do the job. We won’t use it as an excuse.

    • Ark87

      Bloggers have to blog, the commenters have to comment. If everyone just does their job this thing will work itself out. It’s not for lack of effort. These commenters are commenting their hearts out, leaving everything out on the message board. We can fix this thing.

    • ohitsdom

      I don’t think the font choice was unbalanced. Sure, we might’ve planned to go more normal font, but we got behind early and had to stick with italics.

    • The_Reddgie

      REC’D. Well played.

  • austinfan

    We know that Chip Kelly was the media favorite. That’s about all we know.

    The 9 hour interview sounds excessive, but PFT had an interesting tidbit that people around the league were complaining that the Eagles and Bears were pulling an Al Davis: interview everyone to pick their brains.

    There is something to that, but there’s also the fact that Howie seems to be thorough, Eagles always seem to be bringing in veterans to check them out and talking to people. Networking is important in the NFL, and one never knows if one of those candidates is on the street down the line and available for a coordinator position, or could be the next HC candidate in three years. And there is the “pick their brains” aspect.

    With Kelly, the pick their brains theory makes more sense, but so does the due diligence – when you interview someone like McCoy, you have a lot of common ground, he’s a NFL guy, he knows the other NFL guys that you know, you’re getting his preferences but start with the same language. With Chip, one thing you’re trying to ascertain is how much NFL knowledge he actually has, and that takes a lot more in depth interviewing – he’s very slick and you can’t take what he says on face value, you need to dig. When he mentions a name, you have to find out if it’s a name he’s heard, or someone he knows or knows about in detail.

    There was a report of a Brown’s offer but never one of an Eagles offer.

    • laeagle

      But…but…isn’t Howie NOT a football guy? That’s what everyone on the Philly.com comment boards keeps telling me.

  • RawMean

    At this point I think we would be best off hiring Gus Bradley as our HC, bringing some of that tough guy attitude to the team and defense. I really like the Seahawks personality, especially on defense and gotta think Gus has a large part in that. I also respect his ability to develop draft picks, he’s been great at it lately, as well as his development of undrafted guys.

    He has had a few years time to work closely with Pete Carroll now, which could prove to be invaluable. And he has been part of a defense lead by Monte Kiffin, who has deemed him a “Once in a life time coach.” Big words from one of the greatest defensive minds of my time (Im 23).

    Im all about bringing in toughness and accountability to the Eagles and think that starts with Gus Bradley. I am also very interested in Hue Jackson as a potential Offensive Coordinator for the team. He, as well, is a very tough, motivational and charismatic coach and that seemed to have rubbed off on his Raiders team a couple years back, even though they severely lacked talent. I, along with most rest the world, was shocked when he was let go by the team after their best season in years.

    Question for Sir Tommy:

    Do you think Hue would be a good fit, along side HC Gus Bradley, as Offensive Coordinator? Would you be happy with that?

    • ohitsdom

      Sign me up for the Bradley-Jackson combo.

    • laeagle

      There was a lot of talk about some weird ego stuff going on with Hue Jackson. Didn’t sound like a pretty situation. How much of that is due to the dysfunction of the Raiders organization is unknown, but it would be interesting to hear more, since his name keeps coming up.

      Another name that keeps coming up that’s worth of more research is Tom Cable as OC. He punched someone on his staff while HC of the Raiders, and was also brought up on domestic abuse charges. Doesn’t sound too much like a guy I’d want as my head coach.

  • http://www.facebook.com/matthew.verhoog Matthew Verhoog

    It sort of makes you wonder if the eagels asked Kelly some questions he didn’t have good answers for it would make Kelly skittish about going to the pro’s

  • http://twitter.com/n3th3rman Christopher Miller

    Just curious, out of the remaining options, who fits the bill as “innovator”?

  • Pingback: Random notes from around the NFC East: RG3′s knee, the Senior Bowl, Barrett Jones, and Bleacher Report taking over the world – Blogging the bEast

  • ACViking

    Re: Gus Bradley

    Gus Bradley can afford to yell a bit at his players . . . because he has some great players and they’re playing extremely well together. So pushing them, knowing they can be an excellent defense, is not a surprise.

    I’m more curious how Bradley handled the Seattle defensive players 3 and 4 years ago, when the team’s defensive personnel weren’t so good. (Look at Seattle’s last 3 drafts: Defense, defense, defense, and more defense.)

    I’d like to know if Bradley’s a teacher as well as a motivator.

    _______________

    Why are the Eagles the only team interviewing Bradley?

    Are Lurie and Roseman just smarter than everyone else?

    Or are the rest of the NFL teams looking for coaches just dumb?

    • The_Reddgie

      RE: “Are Lurie and Roseman just smarter than everyone else?”

      Christ almighty AC, this just made me shudder uncontrollably for 90 seconds straight.

      • ACViking

        I’m now laughing uncontrollably!

  • http://twitter.com/daniel_suraci Daniel

    “Sorry the site went into italics on Monday. No idea what happened. Probably Bobby April’s fault.”

    Got a giggle out of me on that one.

    I don’t understand the fascination with Jay Gruden. Granted I haven’t watched a ton of cinci games but throwing balls up to AJ Green and having no offense otherwise doesn’t strike me as an offensive guru.

    • Iskar36

      I get the argument for developing young talent, but to me, part of that credit should go to positional coaches, part should go to the scouts and people who actually found the talent, part should go to the coach, and yes, part should go to Gruden, but does that really make up for his limited overall success with the offenses he has run? And his HC experience in 3rd tier leagues does not excite me at all. Yes you have to teach well, but you have to teach well relative to the rest of the coaches in that league, not to the top tier coaches in the NFL and college football. I will be fairly disappointed if Gruden ends up being the guy we hire.

  • Skeptic_Eagle

    A 9 hour meeting, and they aren’t sure if they want him? They talked strategic vision, franchise management, and Xs & Os for 9 hours, and never talked contract, with Lurie sitting there? Isn’t Caplan employed by the organization?

    From the lack of any word of the McCoy meeting, and the lack of public interest in Zimmer, I’d have to guess either those guys are not ready to become the head man, or the Eagles are over the moon about them, and don’t want to tip their hand. I’m guessing the former more than the latter, but the organization is very good at surprising folks, so it’s not totally out of the question.

    I’m not thrilled at the prospect of Jay Gruden; there must be a mountain to him that’s not evident as a coordinator. Right now, it seems like the Bills might have employed some successful strategic dominance game theory. Marrone seems like a better choice than Gruden, to me. With Kelly & BOB never really available to anyone, Marrone might have been the best choice among available candidates. We’ll see how that bears out–certainly the Bills have not show much acumen at making the right choices in the recent past–but then again, neither have the Eagles.

  • Skeptic_Eagle

    Mike Pettine was just fired by the Jets. I’d be in favor of giving him a shot at DC, if we had an offensive minded coach in charge. Will be interesting to monitor where he ends up in the next few weeks, and what the opinion of him is, around the league.

    • bridgecoach

      Definitely comfortable with him as a DC choice…

    • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

      As a graduate of CB East, I’m wary of Pettine’s CB West pedigree.

  • Kevin_aka_RC

    Lovie Smith! Very happy to hear this.