Jeffrey Lurie Praises Nick Sirianni's Approach to Hiring Staff

The Eagles' owner called his coach "relentless" in his approach to rebuilding his staff

Perhaps without meaning to do so, Jeffrey Lurie seemed to hint at one of the reasons Doug Pederson was let go a week after it was assumed he would return when he and GM Howie Roseman met with reports following the end of a 4-11-1 season in 2020.

Pederson wanted to oversee the hiring of his assistant coaches, but he wanted to, basically, run it back with the same group.

Lurie wanted to look around at what else was out there, at least that’s what he said during this recent off-season’s restocking of the staff as some assistants departed.

“When you’re successful, you’re going to lose a lot of staff and you’re going to lose them quickly and you have to not just rely on who you know, who you worked with, who gave you a job beforehand, those are rules that we don’t really believe in,” said Lurie during the recently-wrapped NFL owner meetings in Phoenix. “We think there’s an advantage in having a head coach who truly does the due diligence and is a sort of a grinder at it.”

Lurie talked about staying away from hires who also may be related to the head coach, something many have done, such as the Shanahans, Kubiaks, Zimmers, and Donatells, to name a few.

“That familial kind of approach or nepotistic approach, you see it a lot and you gotta try to avoid that,” said Lurie. “There are so many great coaches.”

Lurie said Sirianni found one when he became the head coach, finding Brian Johnson at the University of Florida, where he was the OC. He was, Lurie said, someone Sirianni didn’t even know before interviewing him.

Promoting Johnson from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator was easy. Johnson was always part of the succession plan, provided Shane Steichen got a head coaching job, which he did with the Colts.

There were other hires that weren’t that simple.

And Sirianni looked far and wide, especially for a coach to work with linebackers to replace Nick Rallis, eventually settling on D.J. Eliot.

Sirriani also took his time finding a replacement for Dennard Wilson as the DB coach before landing on Taver Johnson.

The head coach called Lurie after his 12th interview, per the owner, for a linebacker coach.

“He was relentless, Nick was," said Lurie, "and this is something I really appreciate about him, he not only grinds on football and on connections and culture, but when it came time, and this was a first for him when it came time to figure out who was going to replace the coordinator you lost, he was relentless."

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.