FOR all those who think the Eagles offensive woes are due to losing two offensive coaches, I have an important update: One of them has already been fired, and he didn’t even last 14 games into his new gig.
Minnesota just shit-canned Offensive Coordinator John DeFilippo, and already Eagles fans are screaming that we should hire him back. This seems weird to me. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the man. All evidence points to him having been good at his job, when he was a QB coach here.
My issue comes with the staggering level of self-deluding, that’s required to think such a move solves anything for this team. I’m alternatingly disgusted, and then morbidly fascinated by it. Instead of taking a hard look in the mirror and fixing what’s wrong, some fans seem to think a spin in the “Way Back Machine” will fix everything.
It won’t. It won’t because it can’t. I realize this makes me the resident buzz-kill, but the band will not be getting back together. The sooner someone says it, the sooner we can let go of the damaged mess we are today, and do the small handful of things needed to be the awesome dynasty we are meant to be. Again, it is a SMALL handful. (Irony is using all caps to write the word “small”.)
Frank Reich will not be coming back. His Colts team looks to be about to make the playoffs, and even if they somehow miss them, the ownership has to be thrilled with how he’s resurrected their franchise and it’s QB. So Reich ain’t coming back.
Reich not coming back means that we will have a different OC than we did during our Super Bowl run. So who should be our OC? DeFilippo? All indications are that he was a good QB coach, but he bombed as an OC, both in Cleveland and Minny. Duce Staley? That would be a great move, but the Eagles already passed on him. Mike Groh? Well that wouldn’t be a change at all, would it?
No. No it wouldn’t.
So do we bring in DeFilippo to be a position coach again, just so he can bail the next time a better job offer comes along? I mean he did walk away from a chance to repeat, right? And he did it quickly too!
You know what? Fine. Devil’s Advocate. Let’s say he gets brought back. Does that change the play-calling? Nope. Does it change the personnel groupings? Nope. How about the overall offensive concept? Well, to make the QB more comfortable, that could be tweaked in places, but by and large, nope.
Look, integrating a new OC meant there was going to be a drop-off. No one thought it would be quite this steep, but these things happen. They do. Also, keep in mind that the same awesome offensive staff from the Super Bowl, was 7 – 9 the season before. So relax. Show some patience. Let the new regime re-tool and grow.
If we add DeFilippo: “Hey, welcome back bro”. If not: “Hey, good luck fella”. Either way we can make it work. We’re going to make it work, because that’s who we are. We just have few small things we need to do, to get this ship righted. At that point, we can start working on our dynasty.
