Nick Sirianni has earned the benefit of the doubt regarding Dennard Wilson and Sean Desai

Sirianni's first two coordinator hires with the Eagles both became head coaches. Perhaps we should trust him with these next ones.

Amid the second-guessing of his coaching hires, what if Eagles coach Nick Sirianni actually knows what's best for his team?Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by David Murphy | Columnist

Published Mar. 10, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

One good thing about coaching football in Philadelphia is that you have hundreds of thousands of fans at your back. One bad thing is that those fans are also human resources experts, most of whom do not require a retainer. This often complicates the hiring process, particularly in situations where a coach neglects to conduct a straw poll before announcing his decision.

Needless to say, Nick Sirianni is learning all of this firsthand. He may not have known it at the time, but after losing his offensive and defensive coordinators the week after the Super Bowl, the Eagles head coach was suddenly on a collision course with one of those strange realities of Philly sports. Nobody loves position coaches more than Eagles fans.

It’s not entirely clear how a position coach works his way up to cult-hero status, but once he gets there you’d better not cross him. From Duce Staley to John DeFilippo to Jeff Stoutland, the history of the Eagles is largely a history of men who somehow managed to control the fate of entire eras from within their limited niche in the coaching hierarchy. In 2022, Dennard Wilson became such a man.

Sirianni did not have the political capital to survive that. He started off on the right foot, elevating quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson to replace Shane Steichen as offensive coordinator. But after passing over Wilson in favor of Seahawks assistant Sean Desai for defensive coordinator, the outcry was swift and severe. A couple of Wilson’s former pupils in the Eagles’ secondary had been vocal in their belief that he deserved a coordinator’s role. Sirianni only seemed to add insult to injustice when he reportedly informed Wilson that the Eagles would not be retaining him in his previous role.

Except …

Well, I’ll just throw this out there. What if Sirianni actually knows what’s best for his football team? What if the Eagles have done the right thing by deferring to his judgment? What if the person who is best suited to pick between job candidates is not the cornerback or the free safety but the person who actually interviewed those job candidates and is ultimately responsible for their performance?

Strange thought, I know. But the evidence sure seems to suggest that Sirianni deserves the benefit of the doubt. While the jury may still be out on his staying power as Eagles head coach — the last guy showed us how quickly things can change — I think we’ve seen enough of Sirianni to conclude that people skills are a strength of his. This goes well beyond the genuine affection that his players seem to have for him and the chemistry that he has built inside the Eagles locker room. Consider his decision to turn over play-calling duties to Steichen in the offseason. The move invited plenty of questions at the time. Steichen was a relative unknown, and Sirianni had exceeded expectations in his first season at the helm of the Eagles offense. But he recognized the talent his offensive coordinator had, and he understood that the team would benefit if he deployed that talent to make his own job easier.

One year later, Jalen Hurts is an MVP candidate headed toward a monster payday and Steichen is a head coach. If that’s not a validation of Sirianni’s hiring ability, I’m not sure what is. It certainly earns him more of the benefit of the doubt than the wisdom of the crowd, which has demonstrated countless times that it is impossible to fully understand organizational decisions from outside a closed door. The conventional wisdom may have said that Wilson was the obvious choice for the job. But, once upon a time, the conventional wisdom said that Sean McDermott was a bum and Frank Reich was the real offensive brains behind the 2017 Eagles.

None of this means Wilson is anything less than his players and the public perception hold him to be. The Ravens wasted little time in scooping him up as their defensive backs coach. John Harbaugh has a pretty good track record himself. Wilson’s future remains bright.

That said, life in the NFL marches to a certain beat. During the run-up to the Super Bowl, Sirianni was asked several times about his meeting with Andy Reid in 2012 when the incoming Chiefs head coach informed the outgoing Chiefs assistant that he would not be retaining him for the job.

Sure, Sirianni said, he was disappointed to be out of a job. But he also knew that Reid had his own assistant coaches ready to step in.

“He had a guy,” Sirianni said.

The same is true of all incoming coaches. Desai is no different. They have their guys. They want them where they want them. It makes no sense to court dissension or divided loyalty developing over the course of a season.

That danger seemed particularly acute in Wilson’s case, given the loyalty his defensive backs clearly felt. Whether that actually played a role in the Eagles’ decision is beside the point. Wilson’s departure is simply what happens.

Let’s also remember the reason Sirianni had two vacancies to fill. His first two coordinator hires both became head coaches. Perhaps we should trust him with these next ones.