We're Less Than 48 Hours Removed From The Super Bowl And The Eagles Already Lost Both Coordinators With Jonathan Gannon Getting Hired By The Arizona Cardinals
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.A few hours before the game got going on Sunday it was announced that the Colts were going to hire Shane Steichen to be their next head coach. You look at what he was able to do with this Philadelphia Eagles offense this year and there was just no way he wasn't going to end up with one of the 5 open jobs around the league. It sucks to see him go, but all the signs are pointing towards Brian Johnson being the biggest piece to Jalen Hurts' development this year so having him step into the offensive coordinator position will making losing Steichen sting significantly less.
Now when it comes to Jonathan Gannon, it definitely wasn't nearly as obvious that somebody had to take a chance on him as their next head coach. The Eagles defense was great this year for the most part, but it's not like they had the most difficult competition in the world. What happened when the Eagles faced an elite offense with an elite coaching staff?
Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy were able to coach circles around Gannon, and he was never able to keep up on Sunday night. They found a flaw they could exploit in the Eagles defense, and Jonathan Gannon couldn't find an answer for it.
But luckily Gannon was already in Arizona, had a couple extra days to stick around and talk with ownership, and now the Eagles have lost both of their coordinators just days after the Super Bowl. Nick Sirianni has been a head coach in the league for 2 years and his coaching tree already has 2 branches. Not too bad.
The thing with Gannon is that I don't know if I'll ever be able to decide if I loved the guy or hated him. Some weeks he'd have the defense looking like they could bring the whole damn world to a screeching halt. Other weeks it looked like he literally got off on allowing opposing offenses to surgically work their way down field 8 yards at a time. One day he's the greatest defensive coordinator the city has ever seen, the next we are all looking at airline flights to ship him out of town. But at the end of the day, I think that was the best version of Jonathan Gannon we were ever going to see. I'd rather have this perpetual love/hate for the guy than have him stick around another couple of seasons and it turn into a full-fledged hatred.
So congrats to Jonathan Gannon on the new gig. Considering the hell he's going to endure having to deal with Kyler Murray all year, I think we can call it even now. At least we'll always have this memory.