After a very long couple of weeks, the Eagles have announced the hiring of their new offensive and defensive coordinator. Due to the departure of Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon, the Eagles were put behind the 8-ball in their search for replacements. Luckily for them, one of the coaches was already on staff and the other may have been on their minds already. Let’s go over the new coordinators now.
OC Brian Johnson
This move was a no brainer for the Eagles. There’s no better way to ensure your QBs success than to keep a level of consistency around him. Not only that but the fact that Brian Johnson has been around Jalen Hurts since his infant years gives the Eagles’ franchise QB a level of comfort that no other QB in the league has.
Sirianni had previously mentioned that although Johnson was just the QB coach, he was also heavily involved in the offense’s game planning and even in their Red Zone work. Johnson now gets to call plays once again as he did in Florida but this time around it’ll be with the perfect QB for him.
With an offense that’s loaded with premier talents like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Jalen Hurts, and the offensive line, Brian Johnson can pick up where Steichen left off. While the offense was the catalyst for the Eagles in 2022, the next coordinator will have his shot to make the defense the anchor.
DC Sean Desai
Probably my favorite candidate on the list of people that the Eagles were considering. Before I move further though, allow me to clarify something. Sean Desai is not Jonathan Gannon 2.0. What people don’t understand is that Gannon was more so a disciple of Mike Zimmer as opposed to Vic Fangio. Although Fangio was around the team last season, Gannon still has the free reign to call it how he wanted.
Now, Sean Desai is a true product of the Vic Fangio coaching tree. He studied Fangio but has added his twist to his scheme. While you’ll notice a Fangio influence scheme, Desai has recreated it to be in the image of his own.
He knows how to adapt and when to do so. Desai is a student of the game and will call it how he sees it. Now, I understand that may concern some because of the way Gannon called things but here’s some clarity on what I mean.
Back in 2021, Sean Desai’s defense had a blitz rate of only 16.2%. As the season went on, the Bears were in a situation where they had to prepare for a very tough Ravens offense. At the time the only way to hold down the Ravens was to overload the offense with a necessary amount of blitzing.
Desai understood that and adapted. They held the Ravens to 16 points and had a blitz rate of 68% which was 4x more than their usual amount of blitzing. Unfortunately, Gannon wasn’t the same as fans were mostly frustrated by the lack of disguises and creativity from the Cardinals’ new head coach.
Eagles not done yet
The Eagles made some slam-dunk hires on both sides of the ball. While they will continue to fill out the defensive side over the next couple of days, offensively they have promoted Alex Tanney to be their new QB coach, Marcus Brady to be their Senior Offensive Assistant, and T.J. Paganetti to be their new Run Game Specialist/Assistant Tight Ends Coach.
Photo by Andy Lewis/Icon Sportswire
