It was not a good scene for the Eagles and their fans on Sunday evening. The 49ers walked into Lincoln Financial Field after months of off-season trash talk, claiming that the result of the NFC Championship game would have been different had quarterback Brock Purdy not gotten injured. Eagles fans and most NFL fans scoffed at Deebo Samuel when claimed that San Francisco’s gameplan would’ve exposed Eagles cornerback James Bradberry, who according to Samuel, was “trash”.
There was no actual way to know if the 49ers would have won that game with Purdy. After all, they did score 31 points and it was unclear if the 49ers could score on Philly’s ferocious defense even with Purdy. So the 49ers, as Hassan Reddick said, lined that BLEEP up and proved it. Purdy tossed 314 yards and 4 touchdown passes. Samuel gained 138 yards on just 7 touches and scored 3 times.
But I think games like these expose a bigger problem in Philly and maybe in the NFL as a whole. CEO Head Coaches, or head coaches that don’t call plays. Some of the greatest coaches of all time, including Bill Belichick, are CEO Head Coaches. But there is a fundamental problem with a head coach who doesn’t call plays: they’re at the mercy of their coordinators.
A head coach who doesn’t call plays is at the mercy of their coordinators. They go as far as their coordinators take them. We all saw that last night. Kyle Shanahan ran circles around Eagles Defensive Coordinator Sean Desai. Shanahan always controls his own destiny in terms of his offense because he is in charge of every aspect of it.
Shanahan’s 2nd quarter adjustment won the game for San Francisco. What exactly did he do? He ditched the new-look 49ers offense that features more downfield passing to Brandon Aiyuk and went back to his old-school offense of getting the ball in his more YAC playmakers Deebo Samuel and George Kittle that he used to run when Jimmy Garoppolo was under center. Desai never adjusted and played soft zone coverage all day.
Offensively, the Eagles did have success. They moved the ball against Steve Wilks’ defense but not converting touchdowns on the first 2 drives when the 49ers were in a rut doomed the Eagles. But Wilks did something that not many teams have managed. They completely shut down the Eagles’ run game, including Hurts, and forced the Eagles into a drop-back game, something they’re not used to.
The Eagles are effectively in 1st and 8 every time they start a drive, because of the most unstoppable play in NFL history. If they are in 3rd and 6 and under, they used to be able to just run the ball or throw a screen outside and set up a 4th and 2 or 4th and 1. The 49ers completely shut down the run game, meaning the Eagles were never in a situation where they could just tush push for first downs. Eagles Offensive Coordinator Brain Johnson never adjusted.
Desai and Johnson were completely out-classed by the more experienced play-callers, Shanahan and Wilks, on the other side. That ultimately doomed the Eagles on Sunday and Sirianni was powerless to stop it because he didn’t have a play sheet in his hands. Sirianni can be the best culture setter and motivator in the entire National Football League. But at the end of the day, the fate of the Philadelphia Eagles rests in the hands of their 2 young and inexperienced coordinators.
Let’s take a look at Mike McCarthy as an example. Dallas’ offense under former Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore fell flat at crucial moments in the playoffs. So what did McCarthy do? He fired Moore and took over play-calling duties. He could no longer watch as 2 other people controlled the fate of the team he was the head coach of. The result? Dak Prescott is having the best season of his career and Dallas is statistically the best offense in the league in terms of points.
Dan Campbell is one of the best motivators and pure coaches in the entire league. But Defensive Coordinator Aaron Glenn controls a lot of that team’s destiny. And he’s not someone you want controlling how far your team goes in the playoffs. It remains to be seen what happens after Offensive Coordinator Brain Johnson inevitably leaves this off-season.
So we come back to Brain Johnson and the Eagles. Johnson doesn’t have a clue about what he’s doing on offense. He just doesn’t. The Eagles were able to come back in the 2nd halves of games in recent weeks because of the magic of Jalen Hurts, not the play calling. Johnson is a straight-up bad offensive coordinator. He just doesn’t adjust with the defense.
Sean Desai is a little bit better, but he constantly left his backup linebackers in coverage with Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey and provided no help. The moment Shanahan adjusted to a dink-and-dunk gameplan with plenty of passes out of the backfield and screens? The Eagles were done. They were toast. Nicholas Morrow and Christian Eliss can’t run with McCaffrey and Samuel. Shaq Leonard will help but he’s not what he used to be.
This is exactly the reason why NFL Teams would much prefer to hire a coach who is a play-caller rather than someone who relies on his coordinators. While CEO Head Coaches have been some of the best coaches of all time, even the best of them like Mike Tomlin, Bill Belichick, and Pete Carroll have all struggled due to bad coordinators. Tomlin has been unable to find a good play-caller and Carroll rotates a bunch of average ones.
Coaches like Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Matt LaFleur, Doug Pederson, Sean Payton, and Andy Reid who can play-call at a high level are objectively more valuable than a non-playcalling coach like Nick Sirianni when it comes to making adjustments. Despite being 10-2, the Eagles are not favorites and they will not win a Super Bowl this season. They just do not have the coordinators to get it done. Give Sirianni coordinators like Shane Steichen and Jonathan Gannon? The Eagles will be contenders forever.
One thing is clear. Steichen and Gannon are desperately missed in the City of Brotherly Loved. If the Eagles want to be contenders, Johnson and Desai better get their act together and they do that starting this Sunday in Dallas.
