Eagles Make 'Home-Run' Hires with Coordinators Kellen Moore & Vic Fangio
Finding experienced offensive and defensive coaches to run each unit is a hard thing to do for any team, least of all a unit that dropped six of their final seven games the previous year.
Despite the challenges that are brought on by moving their head coach to the hot seat, the Philadelphia Eagles were able to not only succeed in improving their play-calling coordinator roles, but they knocked both hires out of the park.
It all started on Thursday, too.
USA Today- Kirby Lee
To fix a defense that was among the worst in the NFL down the stretch of 2023, the Eagles chose to bring in Vic Fangio to run the defense. After years of trusting disciples of the Fangio-Quarter system, the team decided that getting the godfather of the entire scheme would be far more efficient.
Fangio may be 65 years old (far older than most defensive candidates), but he comes with a wealth of knowledge and a strong pedigree to turn units around.
For their first coordinator hire at least, they knocked it out of the park. Philadelphia's poor defense is expected to be far better in 2024.
Offensively, though, there was a belief that they wouldn't be able to get the kind of experienced play-caller they needed. While there's plenty of talent on the roster, head coach Nick Sirianni and the front office have already been accused of "meddling" with previous coordinator Brian Johnson. Should the Eagles struggle in 2024, the coaching staff would be all released anyway.
Despite the off-field concerns that come from being a play-calling offensive coordinator, the Eagles were able to poach one of the best and brightest young minds in the game regardless.
Kellen Moore, once a hot name for head coaching positions, has been with the Los Angeles Chargers and Dallas Cowboys in recent years. He comes with a proven pedigree (two top statistical finishes in five years), a strong motion-based background (eighth in motion usage last season), and has worked with excellent quarterbacks before.
Moore will have an excellent quarterback in Philadelphia to work with, and plenty of receivers to scheme to get open.
Some will question the effectiveness of Moore as a play-caller. After all, the Cowboys' playoff collapses in the last few years have a lot to do with the offensive play-caller. Even his one year in Los Angeles ended with a poor record and mediocre results.
But context must be added to each of the results Moore had to deal with. In his first year with the Chargers, Los Angeles was decimated with injuries throughout the season. With Dallas, their playoff failures had as much to do with the head coaches brutal in-game decision-making as anything else.
Another point to add to Moore's candidacy is this - after Jim Harbaugh signed to be head coach in LA, there were plenty of teams that lined up interviews with the 35-year-old offensive coordinator.
This wasn't a case of the Eagles getting a "last resort" coach. This was simply a team knowing the effectiveness of Moore as a head coach and doing everything possible to bring him in.
Moore and Fangio come with plenty of questions. Philadelphia won't be immune to questions being asked this offseason after an 11-7 season and an embarrassing playoff loss to Tampa Bay.
But the first step to making sure 2023 doesn't happen again is to make sure the coordinators hired are both experienced and capable. In that regard, the Eagles knocked their recent hires out of the park.
