Fresh off their first Super Bowl title in franchise history the Philadelphia Eagles have lost two important assistant coaches from last year’s staff.
It started when quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo took the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive coordinator job following the departure of Pat Shurmur from Minnesota to become the Giants’ new head coach. Then, offensive coordinator Frank Reich was hired to be the Indianapolis Colts’ new head coach.
At that point, it seemed to be logical that the Eagles might look for a couple assistant coaches from outside the organization to replace those two valuable commodities. That now doesn’t seem to be the case. According to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, the Eagles are not expected to hire an offensive coordinator to replace Reich. Instead, fellow assistants Duce Staley and Mike Groh will take on larger roles.
With the #Eagles having no immediate plans to hire an offensive coordinator to take Frank Reich's job (potentially elevating both Duce Staley and Mike Groh to bigger jobs), all the OC and DC jobs seem to be filled (pending more craziness).
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 13, 2018
This also means head coach Doug Pederson will remain the team’s chief play-caller. Not that this idea didn’t work wonders last season, with Philadelphia scoring the third-most points in the NFL. Still, there’s a vacuum that needs to be filled here.
For his part, Staley has become a hot name in the coaching circles since joining the Eagles as a special teams quality control coach back in 2011. He’s since been elevated to running backs coach with multiple teams expressing interest in the former star running back as an offensive coordinator. For now, it appears that Philadelphia will be able to hang on to him for at least one more season.