January 28, 2024

Report: Eagles expected to hire Kellen Moore to be their new offensive coordinator

By Jimmy Kempski
PhillyVoice Staff

Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports

Kellen Moore

The Philadelphia Eagles have hired Kellen Moore to be their offensive coordinator, according to a late Saturday night report from NFL Network.

The #Eagles are expected to hire #Chargers OC Kellen Moore to be their new coordinator, per me and @TomPelissero. One of the top OCs around, Moore was blocked from all interviews until Jim Harbaugh was hired.

He quickly lands in Philly after an interview in Cleveland. pic.twitter.com/MZfW16vkmx
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 28, 2024

Moore played in the NFL for six years with the Lions and Cowboys, before transitioning from player to quarterbacks coach in 2018. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019 at the age of 30. His résumé:

• Dallas Cowboys (2018): Quarterbacks coach
• Dallas Cowboys (2019–2022): Offensive coordinator
• Los Angeles Chargers (2023–present): Offensive coordinator

Moore and the Cowboys "mutually parted ways" after the 2022 season, but the reality is that head coach Mike McCarthy did not approve of Moore's play calling style, via Jori Epstein of Yahoo:

“I’ve been where Kellen has been,” McCarthy said. “Kellen wants to light the scoreboard up. But I want to run the damn ball so I can rest my defense. Think when you're a coordinator, you know but you’re in charge of the offense. Being a head coach and being a play-caller, you’re a little more in tune.
“I don't desire to be the No. 1 offense in the league. I want to be the No. 1 team in the league with the number of wins and the championship. And if we gotta give up some production and take care of the ball better to get that, then that’s what we’ll do...
“It's fun as hell to call [pass-heavy] plays, but that's not the best thing for your team,” McCarthy said. “Time of possession goes to hell, risk for turnover goes up.
“So we’ve got to get the ball security. We got to secure it better. We need to be a top-five team and that's a skill.”

The Cowboys were the ninth-most run-heavy team in the NFL in 2022.

The day after his exit from the Cowboys, Moore landed an offensive coordinator position with the Chargers. A look at the Cowboys' and Chargers' offensive numbers with Moore as the team's OC:

Year	Points	Yards	Giveaways	DVOA
2019 - Cowboys	6	1	9	2
2020 - Cowboys	17	14	27	24
2021 - Cowboys	1	1	10	4
2022 - Cowboys	4	11	17	14
2023 - Chargers	21	18	16	16

As you can see, the Cowboys led the NFL in yards gained twice in the four years Moore ran the offense. They also finished in the top 6 in points scored in three of those four seasons. In the one down season in 2020, the Cowboys were averaging 32.6 points per game before Dak Prescott was lost for the season with a gruesome leg injury. Andy Dalton, Ben DiNucci, and Garrett Gilbert mopped up the rest of that season.

Moore's one season with the Chargers went badly, as the defense was among the league's worst, and head coach Brandon Staley was fired in season. The Chargers' full-season offensive stats were not impressive, but it's worth noting that starting quarterback Justin Herbert suffered a season-ending injury, and backup Easton Stick started the final four games (all losses).

The Eagles interviewed Moore for their vacant head coaching job three years ago, but obviously went in a different direction. This time around, they'll count on him to infuse "fresh ideas" into the offense.

"Whoever the new coordinator is, there's going to be things that they bring that are going to be fresh ideas for us to help our players grow and help our players play at the top level, and there have been some things that we've done really well on offense, too, in the past that you'll mesh in some of that together, as well, I think with some of the success that we've had these last three years and the things that our guys do well," Nick Sirianni said during his end of season press conference on Wednesday.

"So I'm excited about that, the new ideas meshing with some of the old ideas. We'll see how that continues to go as we go through our off-season process and where we land with that. But yeah, obviously when you get... to me, we got a little bit stale on offense by the end of the year, and these ideas and this new person coming in is meant to take away the staleness and add the value of what they're adding to the offense."

Moore will run the offense and call the plays.

"We're working on getting the best guy in here for the job and a guy who has a vision, a guy who's going to call the plays, a guy who's going to be able to coach the quarterback in the same sense there," Sirianni said on Wednesday. "It's just about getting the right guy, and then we'll decide where that goes, but I'm hiring him to do a job and to be in charge of the offense."

Moore's hiring is a win for the folks who have wanted to see the Eagles implement more pre-snap motion. Here's a little taste of Moore's personality while dissecting some film.

Kellen Moore on packaging plays that use the same presentation (formation, alignment, shift, and motion) together in order to put the defense into conflict. This is standard stuff that coaches like Pederson utilize to make his play call sequencing more effective. pic.twitter.com/bvWv78m8gQ
— Honest NFL (@TheHonestNFL) April 4, 2023