The Philadelphia Eagles have gone from 10-1 to a team that is having no fun. Back-to-back blowout losses will do that.
Now, on the eve of their game with the Seattle Seahawks on MNF, they have made a huge change.
Nick Sirianni has named Matt Patricia the team’s defensive play-caller, displacing Sean Desai, who will still be DC.
A little @Eagles scoopage today: Philly very quietly made a change at defensive coordinator this week moving out Sean Desai to another position and replacing him with Matt Patricia. Desai remains with the team in different capacity but Patricia now runs and calls the defense…
— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) December 17, 2023
To clarify: Sean Desai remains DC but Matt Patricia has assumed play-calling duties. With the adjustment, Patricia will be on the sideline during games and Desai will move to the coaches' booth. https://t.co/R8yJ2vtY7y
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 17, 2023
On top of that, news broke Sunday that quarterback Jalen Hurts is questionable for the Seahawks game due to illness. He flew to Seattle apart from the team so as not to get anyone else ill.
Sirianni addressed defensive issues during the lead-up to Week 15.
Q. What’s your approach to the defensive side of the football? As a head coach, whose expertise is offensive, but you’ve mentioned in the past that you demand a few things. Has that changed at all? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, my job as the head coach is to make sure that the things I do demand are the ones that are going to get done. Again, I hired these guys to do a job, so there are just things I know offensively that are tough to deal with defensively. So that’s kind of my approach there, as I’ve told you guys.
Does it change? Yeah, everything is in a constant change. Everything is in a constant change. You can always change your schemes. You can always change your schedules. You’re always adjusting those things, right? You’re always adjusting those things to put the best product on the field.
The things that stay consistent are your culture, your attention to detail, connect, compete, accountability, football IQ, fundamentals. So, definitely there are things that change as we go.
And then, again, I say there’s things I demand but that changes based off of — because it comes down to the players and what they do well. When I say that, too, a lot of that is situationally and what things are a little bit more difficult for the offense to handle.
The Athletic also reported Kevin Byard had pitched Desai about letting the player do the scoring report on the Seahawks.
“Hey, let us do the scouting report this week,” Byard said.
By “us,” Byard meant the defensive backs. By “the scouting report,” he meant the position-by-position breakdown of the Seattle Seahawks, their upcoming opponent.
It’s a task the Eagles coaching staff typically handles. From Nick Sirianni to Desai to even the most unknown assistant, the staff spends the early portions of their in-season weeks building comprehensive game plans, which they begin implementing on the first days of practice.