2 Philadelphia Eagles assistants among top 14 head coaching candidates

The Philadelphia Eagles could lose two of their best assistants soon.

It’s just how things work in this game that we love. Success garners attention, and when a coaching staff works together as well as the one that leads the Philadelphia Eagles, those other 31 teams tend to come calling when they have a need of their own.

Heck, look at how many times you, as a ‘Birds’ fan looked around the league and saw former Andy Reid protegees manning the sidelines for someone else. As a matter of fact, it’s still easy to find those guys walking around, whether it be Leslie Frazier and Sean McDermott in Buffalo with the Bills, Ron Rivera in Washington, or, yes, Doug Pederson returning to the nest to lead the team he both coached and played for to the Super Bowl.

History is repeating itself with these Philadelphia Eagles.

Change can be great sometimes. It can hurt, but it can be good. Tell the truth. No ‘Birds’ fan really wanted Frank Reich to leave and go to the Indianapolis Colts. From a fan’s perspective, some of us probably would have tied him to a chair at the NovaCare Complex if we could have, but you knew it was the best thing for him.

This Eagles coaching staff houses some of the brightest young football minds in the game, and recently, in a story by USA TODAY’s Doug Farrar two of their assistants, Duce Staley and Press Taylor were named as being among 14 that could be in line for a head-coaching job soon.

Here’s some of what Farrar had to say about Duce:

"After a ten-year career as a running back for the Eagles and Steelers, Staley turned to his second career when he became Philadelphia’s special teams quality control coach in 2011. Staley saw a promotion to running backs coach in 2013, and retained that title until 2018, when the “assistant head coach” title was added to his resume… Doug Pederson wanted to make sure Staley knew how much he was valued… Coaches come and coaches go, but Staley has been a constant. That speaks well for him."

Here are a few of his thoughts about Press Taylor, the man that’s been with the organization since 2013, first as an offensive quality control guy, eventually as the quarterbacks coach, and this season as a young man that’s added the title of passing game coordinator to his title and resume.

"Taylor, the younger brother of Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, has been a highly-regarded name in NFL circles for a while now, and there’s a growing drumbeat around the league that he’s a guy to watch as a head coaching candidate in years to come. His NFL tenure started when Chip Kelly named him the Eagles’ offensive quality control coach in 2013, and he survived the transition from Kelly to Doug Pederson in 2016. Pederson promoted Taylor to passing game coordinator for the 2020 season with the thought that it’s time to see how he can run meetings and put everything together."

Yeah, we can see Duce and Taylor as head coaches. Seeing them on an opposing sideline might take some getting used to, but again, that’s just the nature of the business in the NFL. For now, they’re on our side, at least for another year. We’ll see where all of the chips fall at the end of the 2020 season.