Whether accurately or not, the Eagles had emerged from the preseason as the NFL’s trending hot team, equipped with a new quarterback, three layers of star-level running backs, a pricey free-agent cornerback and a coach who had produced twin 10-win seasons in his two years in charge.
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The Eagles have begun their interview process, but no clear front-runner has emerged for the position. Information from ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez was used in this report. Not only is it usually useless to fire a head coach and promote an assistant, but Lurie had made it plain that he wanted his next head coach to be a communicator.
“I want to engage them and have them understand and what they felt was lacking, I need to understand”, he said.
One of the things that could make Kelly an interesting candidate in San Francisco is that his offense could be a good fit for the skill set of Colin Kaepernick, who once looked like the future of the franchise but was benched this season.
I agree that a defense-first coach is the way to go.
But then Pat Shurmur came out and did the unthinkable: he put Sam Bradford directly under center and gave DeMarco Murray the ball.
There seems to be some more Kelly-less magic in the air, as former Giant Walter Thurmond III picks off a wonky pass from Eli Manning for a disgustingly fast 83-yard pick six.
They’re working on part one with nearly an interview a day with different candidates and a second one reportedly due with Adam Gase some time this weekend.
The Eagles defense once again got gashed by an opposing offense. I blame Lurie, and his attachment to Roseman. He spent 10 seasons under Reid before going to St. Louis to be offensive coordinator in 2009-10. Kelly recruited Manziel when he was in high school and Kelly was the coach at the University of Oregon.
While the Eagles are now in the midst of evaluating potential replacements for their head-coaching vacancy, Kelly is doing his damnedest to hook up with another National Football League organization. And his heart was still with Roseman, now firmly back in charge.
A week ago Wednesday, Lurie explained the timing. Would the organization be in a worse place than it’s in today?
But the Eagles presumably would have still had LeSean McCoy, and probably Jeremy Maclin, maybe Evan Mathis and Brandon Boykin. I mean who knows?
“Three reasons for the early-ish timing”, Lurie said.
A number of players complained about Kelly’s personality, but tackle Lane Johnson mentioned last week that Kelly’s intense practices might have been too much. The thought of Peters retiring is not far off, but should terrify Eagles fans, whose only solace can be that Kelly isn’t around to cut him. Kelly continually said Staley was in charge of the rotation.
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I think he’s a great coach, obviously someone who has had success as an offensive coordinator and as a head coach. But remember that Lurie and Roseman will have a lot to do with whether he succeeds.
