While the NFL had an incredible weekend due to the playoff matchups at hand, the Eagles somehow found a way to squeeze some news out in the midst of it all. As announced, the team is firing Defensive Coordinator Sean Desai while Matt Patricia will be looking for work elsewhere due to his contract expiring.
The Eagles were 10-2 before they demoted Sean Desai. Desai, who was said to be a hiring of Howie Roseman, impressed many with his adjustments early on and he also held Pat Mahomes and Josh Allen in check, to say the least. But the Eagles pass rush was failing to make an impact and the secondary was breaking down during his stint as DC.
Nick Sirianni and the Eagles brass felt it would be best that they demoted Desai during the season in favor of Matt Patricia. Reports say that Nick Sirianni was giving Patricia more responsibility up until he was promoted as the new defensive playcaller.
Unfortunately, that experiment didn’t work in Sirianni’s favor as the defense just got worse. The Eagles went 1-4 during Patricia’s time as the defensive playcaller. It was an ugly sight where you saw the team’s top pass rusher Haason Reddick drop back in coverage at times while the secondary looked even more lost than ever.
What about the Eagles offense?
With all of these moves on the defensive already in progress, one would wonder when Brian Johnson’s time is up. It was reported that Johnson and Hurts didn’t see eye to eye during the season which led to the offense going rogue at times. It seems as if the Eagles were not happy with Johnson’s pass-heavy attack against the Bucs.
There were a lot of questions about the offensive side of the ball due to the play calling that made zero sense at times. We didn’t see any passes in the middle of the field and the run game was mostly an afterthought even with the dual-threat ability of D’Andre Swift. It cause the team’s QB to come into question and regress a bit after signing one of the larger contracts of the offseason.
Many are questioning why Johnson has yet to be fired from the OC position. The reason could be that the Eagles brass are waiting to see if he’s hired as a head coach with any of the teams that have interviewed him. I would think that him being fired would really risk his chances of being “promoted” elsewhere. It could be a sign of respect but hopefully that decision doesn’t take too long.
The Eagles have plenty on their plate this offseason and hopefully, they get things done sooner rather than later. With Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni searching through the weeds for potential candidates for the OC and DC positions, it would be foolish to not state the obvious. It looks like the Eagles are sticking with Nick Sirianni as their head coach. With the delay of any decision being made, this would put the Eagles in a tough position to find a replacement with every other team getting a head start.
But if we learned anything from years past, the Eagles seem to always hit on these coaching hires even when they are behind the 8-ball.
AP Photo/Matt Slocum
