Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni sticks around for a fourth year as head coach in Philadelphia but is spending the playoffs interviewing for the newly vacant coordinator roles on his staff.
“I’m just hungry to prove myself again to (owner Jeffrey) Lurie and the faith he’s had in me,” Sirianni said Wednesday.
Sirianni and team president Howie Roseman, who helped hire Sirianni from the Colts in 2021, confirmed offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and defensive coordinator Sean Desai were fired at a season-ending press conference. The reigning NFC champions ended the season on a 1-6 skid, capped by a 32-9 playoff defeat at Tampa Bay.
“I just think right now we just need to bring some new ideas from the outside,” Sirianni said. “We need to bring a guy in with new ideas that’s not part of this family of coaches. I think that an important thing or even if it is from one of the coaches that have been somewhere else — it can be any of that. So, that’s important and because that’s important you are making sure you always evolve.”
The Eagles started the season 10-1 and were in position to fight the San Francisco 49ers for the top seed in the NFC. Until the wheels fell off.
Johnson came under fire as Hurts’ performance dipped in the second half of the season, but Sirianni said there was plenty of blame to go around.
“We did what we thought was best at the time,” Sirianni said. “I can’t say enough good things about Brian, though. He’s a great football coach. He’s going to have another opportunity to lead an offense, and I will miss him. Some of the things that we want to do as a team is grow in a lot of different areas.
“It’s about coming up with fresh ideas and doing some things different, and that’s exactly where we are right now. Brian being at that position, unfortunately, he’s the one that’s leaving at this particular time. But I can’t say how much I appreciate him as a coach. We’ve had a lot of success here in the past three years and Brian’s contributed a lot to that. … Just wanted to bring in some fresh ideas, and that’s where we are with that.”
Sirianni believes cleaning the slate by refreshing his coaching staff also eliminates the notion of a “stale offense” or scheme.
“It’s just about putting the players in the best positions to succeed but doing things differently at times, too,” Sirianni said as the Eagles search for a third coordinator in three seasons.
“There’s going to be things for whoever the new coordinator is that there’s going to be things that they bring that are going to be fresh ideas for us to help out players grow and help our players play at the top level. There’s been some things that we’ve done well that our offense has done in the past that you’ll mesh in some of that together as well. I think with some of the success that we’ve had these last three years and our guys do well. I’m excited about that.”
–Field Level Media