Everything is close to the vest when it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles but we were able to glean a little bit more about the attempt to thread the needle on what Nick Sirianni described as a stale offense after the collapse to the 2023-24 season.
Former Dallas and LA Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore was ultimately brought in to run the offense and become the Eagles' new playcaller. It’s now becoming increasingly clear, however, that Moore’s job description will be about accentuating what the Eagles had already in place, not replacing it.
Moore arrives with two long-time lieutenants of his own in quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier and offensive assistant Kyle Valero. The rest of the offensive staff is being held over, including position coaches at running back (Jemal Singleton), receiver (Aaron Moorehead), tight end (Jason Michael), and offensive line (Jeff Stoutland), not to mention Sirianni’s closest confidant, passing game coordinator and associate head coach Kevin Patullo.
“We brought in Doug to be the quarterback coach, and then stayed pat in a lot of different areas as well. …Obviously, we know those are really good coaches,” Sirianni said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “I have a lot of faith in them.”
The goal of the plan?
Turn “my offense” as Sirianni has often described it into “the Eagles’ offense,” a presumption that the head coach came to the epiphany that his my way or the highway approach doomed a young mentor with a high-ceiling future in Brian Johnson, now the passing game coordinator with the Washington Commanders.
“As far as us kind of creating our Philadelphia Eagles offense going into 2024, that will be thoughts that we’ve done in the past really well. That will be thoughts that Kellen’s done in the past really well,” Sirianni explained. “So, we look forward to building that together.”
Sirianni has often talked about how meticulous he is when adding plays into his offense in the past, noting how much due diligence comes with vetting what might seem like a cute concept from outside the organization
Now, the curveball is about meshing two different systems with the idea of adding more motion and better route concepts into what had been an offense dotted as top 10 in most meaningful offensive categories over the past two seasons.
“It’s a meshing of two systems, to grow in both systems so we can put the best product on the field,” Sirianni said. “So, that’s why that’s kind of stayed similar is because we’re going to be doing a lot of different — we’re going to be doing different things, but also we’re going to be doing things that we’ve been successful at as well.”
The end game seems to be that Sirianni convinced Jeffrey Lurie that the foundation of his offense wasn’t rotted. The whole thing just needed a fresh coat of paint.
How it all shakes out will be the omnipresent storyline of the 2024 season.
“[Moore]’s been highly successful, and we’ve been highly successful, and I think that I’m really looking forward to meshing what he’s done really well together with the things that we’ve done really well,” Sirianni said. “I think it’s going to be a really good match, and Kellen’s track record speaks for itself.”
The benchmarks are clear for Moore.
No. 8 in total offense, seventh in points per game, third in third-down offense, No. 1 in fourth-down offense, and No. 9 in red zone. That wasn’t good enough so anything demonstrably less will be unacceptable for Moore absent the kind of consistent winning that hides any flaw
A cynic might call all of this chasing style points.
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