Sean Desai better win this Eagles defense over quickly with Dennard Wilson gone
We all vary in our theories about Twitter, but there’s one area where we all can agree. Whether you’re a fan of some of the back-and-forth between players or not and if you can tune out the constant barrage of negativity, it’s hard to argue with a medium that allows you access to the stars we’re intrigued by. It can be a bit much at times depending on who you subscribe to or add to your lists and timelines, but Philadelphia Eagles fans have never had so much access to the team that most of us inherited from friends, relatives, and parents.
It has also been a while since we had so many colorful characters that have no issue with telling you exactly how they feel. You most certainly aren’t getting any phony vibes from this group. Here’s why that is important this evening.
We wouldn’t recommend gathering your news from Twitter. For that, we’d rather you bookmark the websites and news outlets those Twitter handles represent. Use the social media avenue for entertainment purposes only, but in all honesty, Twitter does have an added value that the news sites don’t.
Following the announcement of Dennard Wilson’s decision to part ways with Philly following the outside hire of Sean Desai to fill a vacancy many of us thought Wilson was qualified for, we honestly went to the social media accounts of those players that we know will give us their honest opinions.
We wonder what Darius Slay and C.J. Gardner-Johnson are thinking. There’s a reason why that’s important.
The Philadelphia Eagles are now searching for Dennard Wilson’s replacement, and we’re extremely curious about how they players that were loyal to him feel about that.
This may not have clicked for some of you yet, but this Sean Desai fella had better win over this locker room immediately. No, wait… We aren’t certain about who will be in this Eagles locker room. Let’s place that one in the back of our minds for a couple more days.
Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham’s run in Philadelphia Eagles green might be over. We don’t know if C.J. Gardner-Johnson will be here. Slay has been mentioned as possible trade bait as there’s some theory that Philly may want to shed his massive salary.
Good gracious. This gets more complicated every time we think about it. That doesn’t make it any less important that Desai grabs this defense’s attention though.
Again, what are the players thinking?
Dennard Wilson has served as the Eagles’ defensive backs coach since joining Nick Sirianni’s staff in 2021. Under his watch, Avonte Maddox has blossomed, and Darius Slay began landing on the Pro Bowl roster again. He won the loyalty of both players, two respected voices in the locker room, very quickly.
The duty of ‘passing game coordinator’ was added to Wilson’s plate in 2022. Then, he preceded to mentor three new additions to Philly’s roster: James Bradberry, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and Reed Blankenship. Again, it didn’t take long for good players to buy in during meetings.
As a result, James earned a Second-Team All-Pro designation. C.J., a slot corner by trade, learned how to play safety and was probably headed to a Pro Bowl had he not gotten injured, and Reed, an undrafted rookie addition, looks like he’s hell-bent on proving to everyone that he should have been a second-day draft selection. You also can’t forget about the growth we have seen from Marcus Epps.
All of these guys credit their improvement in part (and a large one at that) to Wilson’s brilliance. If you’ll remember, the New York Giants gave up on James Bradberry, and Slay has mentioned that Wilson is deserving of a defensive coordinator role several times. That thought has been echoed by several players in the locker room.
The loyalty shown by these guys to Dennard Wilson was tremendous, and if you think that type of bond can be manufactured simply by just plugging another guy in, you’re sadly mistaken.
Then again, if C.J., James, Marcus, and Slay are all gone next year, this really doesn’t matter much, does it?
Change could be a good thing. Doug Pederson taught us that.
Here’s something positive that we can say about Desai (because again, we’re all getting to know him). Change can be a great thing, and he comes in highly regarded.
As much as we love Doug Pederson, he was flawed in one area. Things grew stale because he rarely brought in new faces and looked for new philosophies. If there was a vacancy, Doug intended to fill it by way of an internal promotion… except, of course, for that time he elected NOT to hire an offensive coordinator. We’re still scratching our heads about that one.
Again, we all love Doug, but we’d be fibbing if we said that there weren’t times in which we watched the same old boring and stale offense week after week. Perhaps Desai will change that.
He’s a Vic Fangio student. That may be a big reason why he’s here, but he is without question expected to bring in new ideas. If he does and they work, that’s a good thing. We asked for a defensive facelift, and doggone it, we’re going to get one. We just didn’t think we’d lose this many coaches.
Oh well… While we wait, let’s hope Desai has a similar chemistry with the players that Wilson did because that will go a long way in determining how quickly guys buy in and how quickly we can heal from the second-half catastrophe we saw in Super Bowl 57.
The Philadelphia Eagles have their defensive coordinator. Now, they need a linebackers coach AND a defensive backs coach. We trust the brass to do the right thing, but we’d also be fibbing if we told you the new defensive backs coach didn’t have huge shoes to fill.
