The Friend Of The Program Who Helped Eagles' Michael Clay Develop Into One Of The NFL's Top Young Coordinators

Three-time Super Bowl champion Brad Seeley has been a sounding board for Eagles' STC Michael Clay.

Brad Seeley as special teams coordinator for the Raiders. / Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA - When the Eagles’ hired Nick Sirianni before the 2021 season, there was some significant hand-wringing over the youth and relative inexperience of the coaching staff that ultimately proved unfounded.

While Sirianni and his coordinators lacked demonstrated performance in their new roles, the experience aspect was alleviated by the out-of-the-box notion that sounding boards can exist outside an organizational flow chart.

Sirianni himself had his mentors – Frank Reich and Larry Kehres – on speed dial while the Eagles’ developed “friend of the program” relationships with coaches like Mike McCoy, Jim Bob Cooter, Vic Fangio, and Brad Seeley.

McCoy was once the boss on Sirianni and Shane Steichen with the Chargers and was often a training camp guest before heading to Jacksonville with Doug Pederson in 2022. Cooter was an on-the-books consultant, helping Sirianni with special offensive projects in 2021 before also going to the Jags and is now with Steichen in Indianapolis as the offensive coordinator.

Fangio was on speed dial for Jonathan Gannon in the "friend of the program" category in 2022 before becoming the first two-week consultant in the lead-up to Super Bowl LVII in history despite having already agreed to become the DC in Miami.

Had the timing worked out Fangio would have been Gannon's successor as the Eagles' defensive coordinator and that end game came to pass for this season.

Seeley, meanwhile, has been the steady hand in the shadows helping Michael Clay develop into one of the best young coordinators in the NFL. His occasional presence was known to a few but only publicly confirmed by Sirianni at the start of training camp when discussing Clay's ascension.

"I'm really confident in our special teams coaches," Sirianni said. "We’ve continually gotten better at special teams throughout these past three years. Michael Clay deserves a ton of credit. He has done an unbelievable job. He is a great young coach who works daily to try to get better.

"The guys love Coach Clay. The players that play for him play their butts off for him. That's just a testament to him. Coach [Joe] Pannunzio, Tyler Brown, Coach Seely and just the guys that have been here helping us continuing to improve."

Seeley, 67, has spent 40 years in coaching, the last 30 as one of the NFL’s best special teams minds with three Super Bowl rings on his resume. He's been around the Eagles for two years helping behind the scenes and is often at training camp practices.

“I mean, Brad has been over probably the past year with and a half, two years very influential on how to be a coach in the NFL,” Clay said. “It's hard to say no to anybody that has 30-plus years of experience, three Super Bowl rings, been to multiple Super Bowls and may not have won, but the great thing about Brad is he's just trying to help out."

Seeley technically retired from coaching after the 2019 season as the STC with Houston. He also has run special teams for Indianapolis, the New York Jets, Carolina, New England, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Oakland.

“He's not trying to look for anything else. He wants to be around the guys. He wants to have fun," Clay said of Seeley. "Football is a kid's sport, so the longer you can be around a kid's sport as your job, you're going to do it.”

When the Eagles hired Clay, he was the youngest coordinator in the NFL at the age of 29 and there was a significant learning curve. By last season Clay had turned his ST units into one of the most effective groups in the league and is now entrenched as one of the better STC in the game.

Seeley has played a big part in that development.

“Brad has been very much instrumental in myself just growing as a coach.” Clay said. “For right now leaning on Brad, [assistant special teams coordinator] Joe P [Pannunzio], [special teams assistant] Tyler Brown, and just other coaches that I've learned from is very influential to myself to help these guys be as good as they possibly can be.”  

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