Jonathan Gannon’s defense started fast in the Super Bowl, then disappeared in the second half

GLENDALE, Ariz. – When the Eagles’ locker room finally opened to reporters, the cavernous space was half empty and coach Nick Sirianni was walking around to each stall, hugging the remaining players. General manager Howie Roseman exited stage right, but owner Jeffrey Lurie and his heir, Julian, stood over the collective dejection of their team.

Offensive coordinator Shane Steichen made an appearance on his way, presumably, to the Indianapolis Colts. Quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson, his likely replacement, stood by quarterback Jalen Hurts’ locker and listened intently.

But Jonathan Gannon was nowhere to be seen — at least to this set of eyes — following Super Bowl LVII. The defensive coordinator was under no obligation to answer for his unit following the Eagles’ 38-35, nail-biting loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night in Super Bowl LVII at State Farm Stadium.

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Five years ago, Jim Schwartz, Gannon’s predecessor, shunned interview requests even though he had just become an NFL champion for the first time. Their Super Bowl experiences shared many similarities. When any unit is tasked with defending two of the greatest quarterbacks to ever spin a football, it must feel like being a passenger on a four-hour flight with only turbulence.

But when you helm the side of the ball opposite the Eagles’ preferred offense, you’re less than a co-pilot. Success is often predicated upon time of possession, ball control, and points, especially when facing Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady.

Gannon had the answers in the first half as the Eagles held a 21:54 to 8:06 advantage on the clock and built a 24-14 lead. His defense held the Chiefs to seven points, and if not for a Hurts fumble that linebacker Nick Bolton returned 36 yards for a touchdown, the second half could have looked different.

But Gannon’s group couldn’t get a stop — not even just one third-down denial, one sack, or one turnover — in the final 30 minutes. And it was left to several of his players and, and poignantly the hero who delivered the fatal blow to the Patriots five Februarys ago, to make sense of how the coordinator’s defense yet again had few answers against an upper-echelon quarterback.

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“Boy, it stings. You can taste it. You can feel it,” Eagles defensive tackle Brandon Graham said. “All we had to do was make a play on defense. We’re all together, but we know that it sucks that we couldn’t get off the field and make a stop for the offense, because the offense put us in a position.”

Sirianni’s offense, for the most part, did its job. It’s hard to argue with 35 points. But the third-and-5 draw play on which Hurts fumbled — after he had completed 11 of his first 13 passes — was a questionable call. And Sirianni, who fearlessly went for it on fourth down several times, turtled up on fourth-and-3 early in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles trailed, 28-27, with 10 minutes and 33 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter when faced with a fourth down on their 32-yard line. Sirianni didn’t know at the time that his punt cover unit would subsequently allow a 65-yard Kadarius Toney return, but several analytics models overwhelmingly suggested he go for it in that situation.

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There may be a witch hunt for a goat on the outside, but the best organizations will conduct thorough autopsies when analyzing their performance, win or lose. The Eagles appeared to be the more talented squad and lost partly because they either made more mistakes or were slightly outcoached by the Chiefs.

They have nothing to be ashamed of, and neither does Gannon, who had plenty to do with the Eagles’ 16-4 record this season. But the vaunted pass rush hardly ever pressured Mahomes, and a suspect run defense and individual holes in the secondary came back to haunt the unit.

The Eagles, who recorded 70 sacks in the regular season, and eight more in the first two games of the postseason, never dropped the quarterback. They forced him from the pocket a few times, but Mahomes pulled out completions like rabbits as he completed 77.8% of his passes.

“They just did a great job getting that ball out of his hands, a lot of quick stuff,” Graham said. “We knew that going in. Then, when we did get him, we were close to getting him, it was just Mahomes making plays.”

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But when the Chiefs reached the red zone, they took advantage of the Eagles’ man coverage that allows for switching off, but can sometimes cause miscommunication. On each of their last two touchdowns, the Chiefs had split wide receivers — Toney and Skyy Moore dummy jet motion and then release at the snap into corner routes.

On both occasions, the Eagles switched off or followed decoy routes inside and Toney and Moore were wide-open for easy scores.

“With their defense, what they do is switch off and it was a busted play,” Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster said about Toney’s touchdown. “We’ve been running these plays for the past two weeks.”

In Week 4, Doug Pederson had early success with similar routes vs. the Eagles before his Jaguars eventually relented. Offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy said Kansas City’s study of film revealed the tendency near the goal line. Gannon’s game plan, whether he had ideas designed for the opponent or not, seemingly lacked originality.

Reid and his assistants also schemed up a ground game that exploited Gannon’s reluctance to use his 5-2 front at the expense of giving up explosive plays in the second half. It allowed the Chiefs to not only score, but to shorten the game and tilt time of possession back in their favor.

Mahomes scrambled for 51 yards on four tries, but Kansas City’s other runners rushed for 114 yards on 20 carries (5.7-yard average). A lot of fingers will be pointed at Gannon and the secondary for breakdowns in the red zone — and that’s fair.

James Bradberry’s fateful hold of Smith-Schuster, despite its controversy, further exposed Eagles defensive backs who struggled vs. double moves when in certain coverages. But the defensive line failing to get near the production it previously provided, ultimately may have been where the game was lost.

“We all owned our stuff, because there was a lot of stuff that we didn’t like that we wish we could have taken back,” Graham said. “Jalen, for sure. He was like, ‘It’s on me for the fumble,’ and it’s like, ‘No, we’re all together.’

“We can start [pointing out] plays, but we know all that stuff matters and it adds up. We just know on defense, when it wasn’t the best that we had been doing.”

If Gannon was scheduled for his regular Thursday news conference, there’s little doubt he would have fallen on the sword for his game plan and his play-calling, even though there was plenty of blame to sprinkle around.

A few weeks ago, it appeared he would return next season after his lone head-coach interview with the Houston Texans didn’t result in his getting the job. But Gannon is slated to meet with the Cardinals back here in a few days. It would seem Arizona’s delay was the wait for the 40-year-old.

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It’s possible then that Sirianni will lose both his top coordinators. He has potential in-house replacements in Johnson and defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson. Gannon’s scheme isn’t popular in Philadelphia, but there is no perfect scheme.

Wilson will likely keep the status quo, although with seven defensive starters as pending free agents, he has an opportunity to alter the system. Good luck to him in a town often looking to villainize coordinators.

Or maybe Gannon returns. His players seem to want him back, at least.

“He lets his players be who they are at the end of the day, and if he decides to leave, whoever’s getting him I think they have a great head coach and someone the players will really take to,” All-Pro linebacker Haason Reddick said. “So, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully he doesn’t go, but that’s for my own selfish reasons.

“I like Gannon.”