Eagles OC search reveals a painful truth about Nick Sirianni

The Philadelphia Eagles fired their embattled offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, less than 48 hours after their season ended in the Wild Card round. It wasn't a moment too soon: The offense had been overwhelmingly gross all season, and things came to a head when Jalen Hurts and Co. only managed 19 points against a garbage 49ers defense in the playoffs.

So yes, the repeat bid was over, but some amount of justice was served because someone got fired for doing a bad job. Vibes were relatively high.

That was on Jan. 13 — more than two weeks ago … and yet, somehow the Eagles still haven’t hired anyone, with one candidate after another removing themselves from consideration. It’s not time to panic, but it’s definitely time to rethink how the offensive coordinator job in Philadelphia is viewed. Vibes are not nearly as high right now.

Nick Sirianni floundering as OC job remains unfilled

Since the Eagles’ season ended, eight head coaches and seven offensive coordinators have been hired around the NFL. Nine of those combined hires were offensively minded candidates who were realistic (or semi-realistic) options for the OC job in Philadelphia. 

Going into this hiring cycle, a lot of people (including myself) thought the best and brightest were going to be lining up around the block. After all, if you're good at your job (you don’t even have to be great), the Eagles offense works really well. And if the Eagles offense works really well, then the Eagles will make a deep playoff run. And if the Eagles make a deep playoff run, you’ll get hired to be a head coach. Over the last decade, we’ve seen it happen with everyone from Frank Reich to Shane Steichen to Kellen Moore. 

But turns out that candidates might not see it that way. We saw Mike McDaniel take the OC job with the Chargers. Todd Monken took the head coaching job in Cleveland. Brian Daboll took the OC job in Tennessee. Zac Robinson went to Tampa Bay. Bobby Slowik is off to Miami. 

We're now down to the second or third tier of Philly's wish list, while a lot of the people you would consider to be the top offensive minds in football are taking other jobs. But why? Well … we don’t exactly know. 

Uncertainty makes the Eagles OC job less desirable than first thought

The fact of the matter is that we don’t know everything that we don’t know, but here’s what we do know that we don’t know when it comes to the Eagles offense moving forward.

• What’s going to happen with WR A.J. Brown?
• What’s going to happen with future Hall of Fame tackle Lane Johnson?
• What’s going to happen at center?
• Exactly how little input will Nick Sirianni have on offense?
• Do candidates want to work under Sirianni?
• Do candidates care that Jeff Stoutland is a package deal as running game coordinator?
• Do candidates care that Howie Roseman is in charge of everything?

Those are all pretty important pieces of the puzzle. The first three are especially important, because they involve the actual talent on the field on offense. It’s easy to say that a new offensive coordinator can come in, be marginally better than Patullo, and have the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game — which probably would’ve been correct for the 2025 season. But there’s a very, very real chance that Philly loses some of their best offensive players this offseason. That means the new OC isn’t going to have as easy a time as Moore had, or that Patullo (should have) had.  

As for the other four, they come back to personal preference. McDaniel and Daboll were head coaches last season, which means they were used to having their way. They took jobs where they are the sole offensive minds for their new teams; that’s probably more freedom than what they would have with the Eagles. 

Is that the sole reason they took those jobs? Maybe. The only people who know are those two guys, but thinking that autonomy played a part in the decision is a pretty safe assumption. Of course, that’s only a priority for some people. There are other candidates out there who would be downright foolish to pass this opportunity up, regardless of the baggage that comes along with it. 

Nick Sirianni and the burden of the CEO head coach

The bottom line here is that a CEO head coach is a feasible idea, and we know that it can work. Unfortunately, we’re learning about the downside in real time: In order for the model to work, the coach in question has to build trust that they’re going to be a good CEO who won't meddle. Sirianni simply has not built that trust.

After the 2023 season, the Eagles changed Sirianni’s role from an offensively minded head coach to a CEO head coach. He formally went from being part of the offensive game-planning and being an to being solely the head coach of the football team … at least in theory.

The sticky part is that he’s now doing a job that he wasn’t hired to do, and he still has a significant influence on the offense. Remember what Josina Anderson reported when the Eagles started this hiring process: 

The insinuation there is that the elite candidates would not have that “complete autonomy” over the offense. What constitutes an “elite candidate”? Is that only McDaniel and Daboll? Would that have extended to Joe Brady? Is it none of them?

To make another safe assumption: The guys who are in the running, like Packers QB coach Sean Mannion, former Chiefs OC Matt Nagy and Colts OC Jim Bob Cooter, are definitely not elite candidates. If it’s any of those guys, you have to imagine that 2026 is going to be another year of an unabashed Sirianni offense filled with boring route combinations and a lack of a killer instinct.

However, anyone they hire has to be better than Patullo. I’m not saying “has to be better” like I’m pleading; I’m saying “has to be better” because Patullo was so unbelievably bad at play-calling that there’s no one who could possibly do any worse. So at least there's that.