As the dust settles after an explosive week in Philadelphia, more details on the coaching search conducted by the Eagles and the decision to hire Doug Perderson have started to come to light.
Here’s what we’ve learned in the past 24 hours and where we’ve pieced the information together from.
The “special adviser”
Firstly, according to a report from CSNPhilly (which you can read here) Ron Jaworski was actually a “special adviser” to the Eagles when it came to the search for Chip Kelly’s replacement. We knew that Jaws was involved in the process but until today we weren’t entirely sure how involved. According to the report, Jaws claimed that the team had a list of 20-25 candidates of which he helped narrow down to six.
The most interesting point shed some more light on the interviews themselves. We knew already that the Gase interview lasted for eight hours or so..but he wasn’t alone, Ben McAdoo also had an interview that lasted a similar duration before being hired by the Giants just days later. The same report also infers that it was coincidental that Pederson is another Offensive Coach as the Eagles didn’t really have a preference. Jaws also stated that “there was never a No.1 choice.”…..interesting.
The Defensive denominator:
Per NFL Insider Adam Caplan who spoke to Joe DeCamara from 97.5 the Fanatic earlier today, the Eagles have indeed had contact with Jim Schwartz but it remains unclear at this stage who contacted who. We knew the Eagles were potentially looking to replace Davis, we knew there were talks of the Eagles being interested in Schwartz and every report we have seen so far regarding this position seems to infer the same. Caplan’s claims of a discussion via phone call further cement that the Eagles could well be pursuing the former Lions Head Coach. This would also mean that the Eagles have been looking to contact Schwartz for a while or at least since Pederson has been involved in the talks, are the Eagles trying to make Pederson’s life easier for when he makes his NFL Head Coaching debut? Was this part of the search process? It might well be…
Building the foundations:
In the same interview, Caplan dug a little deeper on the Eagles personnel situation. We knew previously that as opposed to a General Manager, the birds would instead aim to create a team dedicated to making those choices to right the wrongs of Chip Kelly’s short but explosive tenure as a GM.
Caplan seems to think the Eagles are going to hire two members of staff to add a rigid structure to their fragile front office and support their new Head Coach to the best of their abilities. The position in question is “personnel director” which would essentially eleviate a lot of pressure off of Pederson’s shoulders..again, this may have been part of the process all along considering the Eagles have already hired former Rams DC Flajole.
It’s almost as if the Eagles know they have taken a risk to some extent and are trying to build enough framework around him to ensure that he can focus on what he does best whilst the new “department” can work on moving the team forward personnel wise..maybe this was something the other coaches weren’t too keen on.
It seems as though we have all these different tangents..
A Coach who wasn’t on the radar of any other NFL team who was yet to call a play until this season
The Eagles spontaneously giving an unknown role to a former Rams DC
The reports of the Eagles pursuing Jim Schwartz
More light being shed on the replacement for the General Manager position
and yet nobody is connecting the dots. Nobody is asking why is this all happening right now? Why are the Eagles making so many behind the scenes moves? Well luckily, that’s where we come in..to piece together the information and come to the conclusion that the Eagles are re-enforcing their fortress to ensure that Pederson has the best chance possible to defend it successfully.
https://twitter.com/LiamJenkins21/status/688475775666905088
The basic summary would be that the Eagles are preparing to have Pederson’s back and give him as much help as possible in the departments Kelly failed to succeed in. For a team who are slated for making “the worst Coaching signing” of all the NFL vacancies according to ESPN, they’re surely looking to take the right measures to ensure that there’s a pleasant surprise at the end of the tunnel.
