What already looked like a busy offseason for the reigning NFC Champions got a lot more complicated after defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon left to become the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.
I’ll keep this one fairly short and to the point – I’m not sold on this hire at all. Sure, the Eagles’ defensive front was historically good at getting after the quarterback, but that turned out to be a smokescreen for some pretty sketchy defensive play.
Let’s look at this year’s Eagles’ games played against offenses that could even be remotely considered competent:
Week 1: Eagles 38, Lions 35. They give up a ton of points and yards to the Lions but win the game anyway.
Week 2: Eagles 24, Vikings 7. Monday Night Football. Kirk Cousins in primetime. Don’t think I have to elaborate much past that.
Week 4: Eagles 29, Jaguars 21. Okay, I’ll give some credit here. They held Jacksonville to under 200 yards passing and 100 yards rushing. Pretty good against a playoff team.
Week 6: Eagles 26, Cowboys 17. Cooper Rush.
(Not competent) Week 10: Eagles 21, Commanders 32. 32 points!? To the C-WORDS!?
Week 12: Eagles 40, Packers 33. They win the game but allow zombie Aaron Rodgers and future Packers starter (?) Jordan Love to combine for over 250 passing yards. Green Bay rushed for over 100 as well.
Week 14: Eagles 48, Giants 22. Daniel Jones ripped them up but got sacked to death. Smokescreen.
Week 16: Eagles 34, Cowboys 40. Uh oh! Dak Prescott renaissance!
Divisional: Eagles 38, Giants 7. Impressive score, but they get run all over. Luckily, sacks take New York completely out of the game. Smokescreen.
Conference: Eagles 31, 49ers 7. San Francisco didn’t have a functioning quarterback for the majority of the game.
Super Bowl: Eagles 35, Chiefs 38. They can’t get a single stop in the second half and blow a double-digit halftime lead.
By my count, Gannon’s defense played 12 teams against adequate offenses and only played convincingly well, without any issues with the opposition, in maybe two of them? The only one I’m convinced on for sure is that Jacksonville game.
Gannon’s Philadelphia defense lived and died by quarterback pressure. The Super Bowl was a great case in point – when they couldn’t get to Mahomes, they got ripped apart. The downfield coverage was far from convincing, and they lost the game because of it.
Is that really the guy the Cardinals want running their team in the future? I don’t see it.
I’d say the key to this hire will be a home run hire at offensive coordinator, but they already swung and missed on that too! Drew Petzing? WHO!?
I guess he’s coming from Cleveland, where he was the quarterbacks coach. With Kyler Murray, he’ll go from one embattled quarterback to another. That’s if he plays at all next season, which seems more and more unlikely by the day.
Unfortunately, the Gannon hire comes across as a pretty uninspiring move made by an uninspired franchise with no present direction or timeline to competitiveness. Arizona’s defense was shambolic last year, and the offense was just as bad by the end of the year.
At least he’s “a players’ coach.”
Please, just shoot the Cardinals into the Sun.
4/10. Piss on it.
Is this the first “Piss on it” rating given by The Camp? I think it is!
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