January 19, 2026
Gary A. Vasquez/Imagn Images
If the Eagles' next OC comes from the Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan tree, that would be a major shift in offensive philosophy.
So far, one defining characteristic of the Eagles' search for an offensive coordinator is the wide net the team is casting to gather as much information as possible.
The Eagles have already spoken to a variety of unique coordinator candidates, many of which come from different coaching trees, have different philosophical backgrounds, and have had varying degrees of success.
There aren't many threads that link Brian Daboll, Josh Grizzard, Zac Robinson and Jim Bob Cooter, but all have had – or will have – their time in front of Eagles team brass. Others have also interviewed, and there are many more to come.
Casting a wide net and kicking as many tires as possible is always the best approach to coaching searches, and the way it's been done under owner Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman, the team's longtime executive vice president of football operations.
The franchise pillars pride themselves on being open-minded, adaptable, and at the forefront of finding upcoming football minds who stay ahead of the curve schematically and also understand the importance of connection with today's athlete.
Lurie and Roseman will be instrumental in helping head coach Nick Sirianni find a replacement for the fired Kevin Patullo, and even if they interview candidates who they're unlikely to hire, they've cataloged names for down the road or have intel on coaches who might someday be scheming against them.
But this decision on the new offensive play caller must be more calculated and deliberate for the Eagles, and the scope must eventually be narrowed even as they sort through an expansive interview process.
Before they make this hire, the Eagles have to decide who and what they are.
At last week's end-of-season press conference, Roseman said the Eagles are in win-now mode. The Birds are locked into too many expensive long-term contracts – including the quarterback's – to simply push reset or just toss their entire current playbook out the window.
Hiring someone from the Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan tree, like Robinson or Mike McDaniel, would represent a major fundamental shift in what the Eagles have done and perhaps be a questionable fit for the personnel they have.
The Seahawks' decision to gamble on Sam Darnold after trading away Geno Smith blended perfectly for their new offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, a Shanahan disciple who runs the core concepts in Seattle that Shanahan's 49ers employ. Kubiak coached under Shanahan in San Francisco.
Darnold had just played like an MVP under Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell – a branch of the Sean McVay tree – and before coming to Minnesota had spent the 2023 season as Brock Purdy's backup in San Francisco. That year, Kubiak was Shanahan's pass game coordinator.
The Seahawks decided what they wanted to be offensively, and intentionally matched the coordinator with the quarterback. They then earned the No. 1 seed in the NFC and are one win from the Super Bowl. They scored the NFL's third-most points and totaled the league's eighth-most yards.
Are the Eagles simply looking for the person to accentuate – and renovate – the offense they've been running for years under Sirianni, like remodeling an aging kitchen with newer appliances and cabinet facings? Or are they willing to take a sledgehammer to the operation and gut the whole thing from top to bottom?
The hunch here is that for as long as Sirianni is head coach, for as long as Jalen Hurts in the quarterback and the run game is built around Saquon Barkley, and for as long as Jeff Stoutland is the run-game designer, the Eagles will be looking for someone whose core philosophies are similar to Sirianni's.
If that's the case, someone like Daboll, Kafka, Cooter or perhaps Arthur Smith (who has not reportedly interviewed) are more logical options. Fans might not love some of those names, but those are coaches who can better adapt their schemes and philosophies with the team's current infrastructure.
Hiring someone from the Shanahan or McVay tree – or even a real wild card, like Charlie Weis Jr. from the college ranks – would represent a seismic departure from what the Eagles have done, and while the ceiling for their offense could theoretically be raised to Jupiter, the same could be said for the risks and potential for disaster.
The Eagles can't possibly know how quickly their current personnel would acclimate to an offense that features heavy motion and misdirection, fullback usage, predominant under center formations and an entire pass scheme predicated on timing and anticipation along with route concepts designed to exploit every blade of grass.
As horrid as the Eagles' offense looked this past season, and at times in 2024 during the regular season, the Eagles have won nearly 70 percent of their regular-season games and 60 percent of their playoff games doing it Sirianni's way, and they've have made two trips to the Super Bowl in the past three years, winning it once.
It's very hard to view that overall success and be convinced that wholesale, sweeping remodeling is needed – especially if you're the people most responsible for that success, and if your job (ahem, Sirianni) hangs in the balance of this decision.
Before the Eagles name their next offensive coordinator, they should keep interviewing candidates of all backgrounds and pedigrees, and should continue to challenge their conventional thinking of doing it the way they've done it.
But if they're going to blow it all up, they need to be prepared for the ramifications.
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