Finding another Shane Steichen won’t be easy, and other thoughts on the Eagles’ coaching future

I consider it a great professional failure that it took me so long to recognize how bright Shane Steichen is. For most of his tenure here in Philly, I thought of him mostly as a guy who looked like a cross between Nick Foles and Napoleon Dynamite. You know, just a guy.

Coordinators are tough to evaluate as it is. Steichen was tougher than most. He wasn’t even calling the plays when he started. By the time he did, it was easy to attribute the Eagles’ success to their overwhelming talent, starting with the MVP-caliber play they were getting at quarterback. Combine Jalen Hurts’ improvisational talent with a dominant offensive line and it’s easy to forget about the scheme.

Quick, who was Peyton Manning’s best offensive coordinator?

Exactly.

For the record, Tom Moore had the offensive coordinator title for Manning’s first 12 seasons with the Colts. Everyone remembers Tom Moore, right?

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It’s hard to forget Steichen now. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it has nothing on losing six games lowlighted by a 27-10 Week 18 loss to the Giants.

Truth is, Steichen’s impact was obvious long before the Eagles hit the skids. You saw it from the moment he took the reins of the Colts. He spent the first four weeks of the season designing and calling an eminently functional NFL offense around rookie dual-threat quarterback Anthony Richardson, one of the more polarizing players in last year’s draft. The Colts averaged 24.5 points, won two of four games, beat C.J. Stroud and the Texans, took Matt Stafford and the Rams to overtime, and gave the Jaguars all they could handle in Week 1.

That four-week stretch is easy to forget given the 14 weeks that followed. With Gardner Minshew at quarterback, Steichen guided Indy to a Top 10 offense and finished the regular season with a 9-8 record. The most impressive part was the transition between the two.

Whenever you happened to watch the Colts, you saw a crisp, intuitive, well-executed offense that consistently dictated the course of events to opposing defenses. The run game was diverse and well-designed. The passing game always seemed to generate a positive match-up. You saw those things throughout the Colts’ season-ending 23-19 loss to the Texans in the de facto AFC South championship on Saturday. Steichen is a real one.

Steichen isn’t walking through that door again. At least, not anytime soon. But I do wonder if solving the Eagles’ offensive regression will be as simple as some people think. Firing the old guy is the simple part. The real trick is finding somebody who is as bright as Steichen.

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The point is, that Steichen’s acumen and feel for the game are both rare commodities. We saw that throughout the end of Doug Pederson’s tenure. Jaguars fans spent 2023 having the same conversations about Press Taylor as Eagles fans did. The Chargers changed offensive coordinators and Justin Herbert still couldn’t make the playoffs.

Greatness is a measure of scarcity. There aren’t a lot of great offensive minds out there. Kyle Shanahan, Andy Reid, Mike McDaniel, Sean McVay. Maybe Brian Daboll.

Steichen might be on his way to joining that group. Finding another one will be a challenge. I’d give Ken Dorsey some consideration given the improvement we saw out of Josh Allen during Dorsey’s time with the Bills, first as quarterbacks coach, then as offensive coordinator. But that’s a conversation for later.

At least, we presume.

I’m not ready to completely leave Nick Sirianni for dead. Frankly, I don’t see how anybody can reach a definitive judgment on him just yet. The Eagles are favored against the Bucs. They should be favored against the Bucs. This is as good of a matchup as they could have hoped for. A plodding, straight-ahead rushing attack. A quarterback who won’t single-handedly beat you. A couple of receivers who rely more on size and strength than lateral quickness.

If the Eagles don’t beat the Bucs? Then, yeah. The decision is easy. Whether or not Sirianni deserves to be fired, he pretty much has to be fired. Coaches can’t coach on a contingency or probationary basis. You are either sold on them or you aren’t. The moment you aren’t, you move on. Wait-and-see doesn’t work. If you can envision a scenario where you’d fire your coach midseason, then you shouldn’t even waste your time. Just leads to a wasted season. It’s the thing the Eagles got most right about the end of the last era. They had their doubts about Pederson, and they made the move. Two years later, they were back in the Super Bowl. The circle of life is a heck of a ride.

But let’s say they beat the Bucs. If chalk prevails elsewhere, they head to San Fran. But what if the Rams beat the Lions? I’ll believe in Detroit when I see them beat a decent team. Their most impressive win since Week 1 against the Chiefs was, what? The Bucs? The Packers? It wasn’t the Ravens, Cowboys, or Seahawks, all of whom beat them. I’m picking the Rams this weekend. Which would mean the Eagles head to Dallas.

A road playoff game against the Cowboys would be something — a big enough something that it probably wouldn’t matter how the Eagles play. They’d get that chance with a win over the Bucs and a Rams upset of the Lions. If Sirianni beats the Cowboys in Dallas and gets back to the NFC championship game, how can you fire him?

I get it. The Eagles aren’t beating anybody if they play the way they have recently. Two straight losses to non-playoff opponents do not bode well for one’s prospects against playoff-worthy opponents. But this isn’t the year to write any team off before the playoffs begin.

My advice: Reserve judgment until we see what happens over this next week or two. Then, unleash hell.