The excuses are officially over for Jonathan Gannon as the Philadelphia Eagles‘ defensive coordinator. You realize that right?
Year one of the Nick Sirianni era (and that of his staff) forced us to endure the rockiest of roller-coaster rides, especially when the defense took the field. It was a mixed bag if you will.
At one point, the Birds’ defense was on pace to run away with a record they’d rather not own, allowing a completion percentage of 72.8 percent or higher by opposing quarterbacks on their schedule.
That would have bested the 72.7 completion percentage the Detroit Lions allowed during the 2016 regular season. To make long stories short. Gannon often seemed clueless versus superior quarterbacks, and his defense made pedestrian signal-callers, at times, look elite.
If that’s one of the storylines as we move through the next regular-season campaign, this team will have a ton of questions to answer. Why? The answer is quite simple actually.
This team has given Gannon everything he needs. After all, we were told, oftentimes, that was the reason things didn’t go well in 2021. The roster wasn’t good enough… Remember?
Just look at some of the weapons the Eagles have given Jonathan Gannon for the 2022-2023 NFL season.
As the door slammed shut on an embarrassing Wild Card Round loss versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, everyone’s mind shifted to two things. One, Jalen Hurts has to prove that he can be the franchise quarterback going forward, and second, massive defensive upgrades have to be made.
In 2022, Hurts will navigate the rigors of another full-season audition for the starting quarterback job going forward. As far as the defense goes, we can place a stamp of approval on what we’ve seen after grading the offseason as a whole.
The argument that J.G. needs players can’t be used anymore. Think about it. Josh Sweat and Javon Hargrave were both elected to their first Pro Bowl a year ago. In 2022, Brandon Graham will return from injury for the coming campaign, and as exciting as that sounds, Philly didn’t sit idly and decide they were done building the roster by acknowledging any of that.
Since March, they’ve added more weapons. They signed Haason Reddick in free agency. Heck, he even calls himself a ‘weapon’. Anthony Harris was brought back. So were Fletcher Cox and Derek Barnett. Philly added Kyzir White in free agency before adding Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, and Kyron Johnson in the draft, and recently, they announced the acquisition of James Bradberry.
Ladies and gentlemen, if the Philadelphia Eagles don’t make waves defensively during the 2022-2023 NFL season, it won’t be because they don’t have players.
Yes, J.G. has received both praise and criticism following his first run as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive coordinator. He was called out publicly by players, namely Cox and Hargrave. To his credit, he worked all of that out. He’s also interviewed for head-coaching jobs. If he plays his cards right and elevates this Eagles unit, he may land one of the jobs that come open in 2023.
Gannon has taken his lumps, both on the field and on social media and message boards. Hopefully, he never fell down the rabbit hole of doing a Google search of his own name, but that’s behind us now.
For now, he’s still Philly’s DC. We’ll see what he has and if he’s truly an NFL head coach in waiting because, well, we’ll say it once more if you missed the following statement the first couple of times it was said.
If you’re J.G., you have NO EXCUSES. James Bradberry was a monster addition for the franchise, another piece that, if used properly, should make Gannon’s job very easy during the coming campaign.