Philadelphia Eagles: Looking at obituary from 2019 season

Coaching

Despite coach Pederson giving a suspiciously large amount of credit to the coaching staff for the team’s late season heroics, position coaches and even coordinators failed to deliver in several big games this season.

Had the Eagles not won the NFC East, many coordinators and position coaches were expected to be let go.

No honest Eagles fan can say they weren’t seriously concerned about coaching for a long stretch of time this season. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz had his unit looking real bad for the first half of the season.

No game did that look more apparent in than against the Miami Dolphins, when the Eagles lost 37-31. While the squad looked better in the last month, there were several times this season where the defense straight up failed the Eagles and allowed opposing teams to move the ball with relative ease.

Offensive coordinator Mike Groh did not do a much better job than Schwartz for long segments of the season either. The defense was able to hold the Patriots and Seattle (twice) to under 20 points.

The offense came out flat in the first half of the first game of the season, which was poorly painted over with a blowout by the end. But those first two quarters were a good indicator of how the Eagles season was likely to go.

Groh is the coordinator that is probably most deserving of being handed his walking papers. Several games this season, the Eagles’ offense came out looking unprepared and lost, before turning it around in the second half.

This is the same problem the Eagles faced in 2018. If injuries doomed the Eagles season in 2019, slow starts were the main catalyst for the Eagles 9-7 record directly after a Super Bowl winning season.

A “double doink” and some early game heroics from quarterback Nick Foles in the Divisional Round against the New Orlean Saints last year saved Groh’s job, but I believe it is time for a fresh perspective in the offensive coordinator position in 2020.

This team has a habit of promoting position coaches to coordinator spots, and it happened in the case of Groh, who was promoted when former offensive coordinator Frank Reich from the 2017 Super Bowl team left to become the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

After Reich left, Groh was promoted, and the Eagles’ offense has looked like a store-brand of its Super Bowl winning offense ever since.

This may ultimately come down to what Pederson wants to do. Pederson came from the Andy Reid coaching tree, where position coaches were handed coordinator duties regularly, and it appears Pederson is very loyal to the group of coaches he has assembled in Philadelphia.

Considering this team and its coaching staff kept the players motivated and winning against unimaginable odds the last three seasons, I expect these coaches and coordinators will be given another chance next season.

We can only hope that they have somehow learned from the past two seasons and will change their approach in 2020.