Add Sean Desai to Eagles' Search for Defensive Coordinator

Philadelphia wants to talk with Seattle associate head coach Sean Desai

PHILADELPHIA - The Eagles have requested an interview with Seattle associate head coach/defense Sean Desai for their vacant defensive coordinator position, according to CBS Sports' Jonathan Jones.

The Eagles have requested permission to interview Seahawks associate head coach/defense Sean Desai for their vacant defensive coordinator position, per league source.

— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) February 17, 2023

Desai, 39, is a former Temple adjunct professor and coach and was the DC in Chicago during the 2021 season.

His background as a former student of Vic Fangio fits the scheme that the Eagles ran under Jonathan Gannon, who was hired as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals earlier this week.

Desai is already the second outside candidate that the Eagles want to speak to. Multiple sources report that the organization also wants to interview Vance Joseph, a former head coach in Denver and the DC with Arizona over the past four seasons.

Joseph, 50, has also been a DC with Miami.

The top in-house candidate for the job is secondary coach Dennard Wilson, who Gannon described as his right-hand man this past season. 

Philadelphia is also very high on linebackers coach Nick Rallis and believes he is a future coordinator, according to a team source. Rallis, though, is 29 and has only been a full-time position coach for two seasons so the thought is that he will need more seasoning.

"We have great in-house candidates," Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said. "There are candidates outside that we know - there's a lot of good football coaches out there that we know."

Sirianni spoke about what he wants in a DC at his season-ending press conference this week.

"There are core thought processes that I have on defense," Sirianni said.

And many of those processes align with the Fangio style of defense that has become all the rage around the NFL.

Fangio himself served as a consultant for the Eagles in the two weeks leading up to their Super Bowl LVII loss to Kansas City and likely would have been a candidate for the full-time DC job, but timing got in the way and the veteran coach accepted the same position with Miami, where he will be the NFL's highest-paid coordinator before Gannon left the Eagles.

"Do I like a lot of the things that we're doing on (defense)? Yes, I do," said Sirianni. "You think you're going to see that I really believe in, you know this, that I really believe in the turnover differential, I really believe in the explosive-play differential. There are things of that nature of that defense that I like.

"Then there's going to be things situationally that are non-negotiables. I guess, to say with me, whether it's third-and-long, whether it's tight red zone, whether it's two-minute, end-of-game plays, whether it's four-minute defense backed up. I'm naturally going to have things that I'm going to require the next defensive coordinator to do."

Sirianni, though, also understands he has to empower his coaches.

"I also know that I'm hiring somebody to do their job to the best of their abilities, and that's why I'm hiring them," he said. "... But with the defense, we're hiring the guy to do his job. I do have core beliefs that I don't want to change intermixed with that. But he's still got to do the job to his best ability - to do his job whoever that may be."

The finished product will be different.

"It's all going to look a little bit different, no matter if you bring Jonathan's twin brother in, which he doesn't have - if you brought him in, it's still going to look a little different when that guy calls it as opposed to Coach Gannon," Sirianni said. "So, there's going to be little changes, little differences. But, again, I guess my long way of answering that is I'm not opposed to changing.

"I'm going to do what's best for the Eagles."

-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen