JUST IN: Philadelphia are hopefully waiting for the ariver of the key….
The city of Philadelphia The Philadelphia Eagles’ buyer’s remorse regarding former defensive coordinator Sean Desai may have begun this summer, on August 9. The Eagles shifted their regular training camp session from the NovaCare Complex across Pattison Avenue to Lincoln Financial Field that day, presumably to improve communication with the preseason opener approaching. “We have to get ready to play and coach in game-like scenarios,” said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni to SI.com’s Eagles Today. “I felt it was a terrific opportunity for us. We went to the stadium the day before – or Sunday, if you like – and there were some things I needed to focus on as a head coach, specifically game management.
“I also wanted the coaches to practice more communication about what was going on before our first preseason game.”
During the actual session, Desai, who had already publicly chastised himself for some previous practice failures, failed to field the correct group against the No. 1 offense during the second team period, prompting GM Howie Roseman to correct Desai. The “incident” was swiftly forgotten, and the Eagles attempted to minimize it, but it remained in the minds of many who witnessed it. According to a league source, Sirianni sacked Desai on Sunday, roughly six weeks after demoting him from the job of defensive play-calling, a decision that stripped the 40-year-old of his control over a faltering defense.
Although Desai remained the DC until the end of the season, he and senior defensive assistant Matt Patricia essentially switched roles, with the latter taking over as defensive coordinator for the final month of the regular season and the 32-9 playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The defense may have gotten worse without Desai, even against a reduced schedule, showing that the troubles on that side of the ball were caused by personnel flaws rather than system or coaching. Patricia, who is out of contract, will not return to Philadelphia for the 2024 season. The 2023 Eagles’ defense looked its best with Desai leading the charge early in the season in Week 3 at Tampa, Week 7.
The wheels came off against two of the top offensive teams in football – San Francisco and Dallas – in Weeks 13 and 14, the latter game serving as Desai’s last stand but one in which he already had third-down autonomy removed from him, according to a team source. The Desai removal began even earlier, when the club was 8-1 and self-scouted during the bye week. The criticism directed at Desai seemed to be unnecessary. Few questioned the ex-DC’s intelligence or comprehension of defensive football, despite his profession as an educator with an Ivy League background. If anything, his covering systems were perhaps too complex for a squad with so many shifting parts on the back end owing to departures and injury attrition.
The last two DCs to call NovaCare home – Jim Schwartz and Jonathan Gannon – exuded confidence, whereas Desai’s presence was far more muted, prompting some to question his ability to oversee a veteran-laden locker room. On at least two instances – against the Los Angeles Rams on Oct. 8 and Dallas on Nov. 5 – five-time Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay pleaded with Desai to tone things down to aid the younger guys and newcomers with some of the communication concerns. “We take everything into account,” Desai said after being informed about Slay’s statements by Eagles Today following the Rams game. “I was not aware of that comment, but he did come to us, and we discussed the idea that we had.
We remained consistent with our calls and improved our approaches to assist our players in their matches. And then Slay is correct. At halftime, everyone of those guys, including the coaches and all of the vets, were told to just do their stuff, play their methods, and win the leverages that were assigned to them. If you do that, you have a chance, and it showed: “Our guys really took ownership of that.”
