In this week\u2019s Roob\u2019s 10 Random Eagles Offseason Observations, we take a look at the nearly unprecedented youth of the Eagles\u2019 offensive coaching staff, what Lane Johnson’s return means for this year\u2019s draft and a forgotten aspect of the legendary 4thand 26 play from the 2003 playoffs.<\/p>\n
And tons more, including a new Jeff Lurie-produced film that looks fascinating if you\u2019re a fan of the Beatles or Rolling Stones.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re all over the map this week.<\/p>\n
1. One notable thing about the offensive coaching staff the Eagles have assembled is just how young it is. Of the newcomers, Sean Mannion is 33, Josh Grizzard 35, Ryan Mahaffey 38 and Chris Kuper 43. Among the incumbents, Parks Frazier is 34, Aaron Moorehead 45 and Jemal Singleton 50. That\u2019s an average age of 39.7 among the primary offensive coaches. That makes this the Eagles\u2019 youngest offensive coaching staff in 29 years, since Ray Rhodes\u2019 1997 staff averaged 38.3 years old. That staff, which included three future NFL head coaches, consisted of offensive coordinator Jon Gruden and quarterbacks coach Sean Payton, who were both 33, offensive line coach Juan Castillo, who was 34, receivers coach Gerald Carr, who was 37, offensive line coach Bill Callahan, who was 40 and running backs coach Ted Williams, who was 53. There are plusses and minuses about having a staff this young. The risk is the lack of experience. Mannion, Grizzard, Frazier, Mahaffey and Kuper have an average of five years of NFL coaching experience, and Mannion has only two. These are young guys who are going to have to convince a room full of NFL players that they can help them get better as players and help the team win. But the positive is that at least in theory you get an injection of youthful energy, fresh ideasc and new concepts, elements this offense desperately needs. I like keeping the two veteran holdover position coaches, Moorehead and Singleton, to provide experience to this young staff and add a thread of consistency from 2025 to 2026. In theory, this staff has a ton of potential. What that winds up looking like we won\u2019t know for quite some time.<\/p>\n
2. The Eagles and Rams are the only NFL teams that haven\u2019t drafted a wide receiver in the first four rounds over the last four years. The Eagles and Rams both drafted WRs early in 2021, the Eagles taking DeVonta Smith 10th\u00a0overall and the Rams taking Tutu Atwell in the second round in 2021. The Rams did land Puka Naua in the fifth round in 2023. The only WRs the Eagles have selected in the last four drafts are 2024 5th- and 6th-round picks Ainias Smith and Johnny Wilson, who have a combined 12 catches for 79 yards in their careers. The last time the Eagles went more than four years without taking a WR in the first four rounds was a five-year stretch 1985 through 1989. No matter what happens with A.J. Brown, I’d expect that streak to end in April.<\/p>\n
3. Saquon Barkley has played the 58th-most games by a running back in Eagles history. He has the 5th-most 100-yard games in Eagles history.<\/p>\n
4. Five of Andy Reid\u2019s secondary coaches during his years with the Eagles went on to become NFL head coaches and four of them won at least one Super Bowl ring after leaving the Eagles. Leslie Frazier was Big Red\u2019s first secondary coach, from 1999 through 2022, and he won a ring this month with the Seahawks. Steve Spagnuolo replaced Frazier in 2001 and stayed in that role through 2003, and he\u2019s won four Super Bowl rings as an assistant, one with the Giants and two with the Chiefs. John Harbaugh spent 2007, his final year on Reid\u2019s staff, as secondary coach and led the Ravens to a championship after the 2012 season. Next up was Sean McDermott, who was defensive coordinator when the Panthers lost to the Broncos in the Super Bowl after the 2015 season and reached the playoffs seven straight years as Bills head coach but hasn\u2019t won a Super Bowl ring. And Todd Bowles, who began 2012 as the Eagles\u2019 secondary coach before replacing Juan Castillo as defensive coordinator, won a ring on Bruce Arians\u2019 Buccaneers staff after the 2020 season. Andy\u2019s only secondary coaches who didn\u2019t go on to become head coaches were Dick Jauron, who was on the Eagles\u2019 staff in 2010 and had been head coach of the Bills from 2006 through 2008, and Johnny Lynn, secondary coach in 2011, who was never a head coach.<\/p>\n
5. Lane Johnson coming back for a 14th\u00a0season shouldn\u2019t affect the Eagles\u2019 draft plans at all. They still need to address offensive line and they still need to plan for Johnson\u2019s retirement, which is still not far off. There should be some good options if Howie stays at No. 23 \u2013 potentially, 6-foot-7, 315-pound Monroe Freeling from Georgia, Utah\u2019s 6-6, 305-pound Caleb Lomu and Alabama\u2019s 6-foot-7, 365-pound Kadyn Proctor could go in that range. But when it comes to finding Lane\u2019s ultimate replacement, nobody would be surprised if Howie moves up for someone like Francis Mauigoa of Miami or Utah\u2019s Spencer Fano. I love the idea of drafting an offensive tackle with guard versatility \u2013 like Mauigoa, Fano or LSU\u2019s Will Campbell \u2013 and letting him compete with Tyler Steen at right guard as a rookie while learning from Johnson and eventually moving into his right tackle spot. Great news that Lane is coming back, but it\u2019s still time to think about his replacement.<\/p>\n
6A. The crazy thing about 4th\u00a0and 26 that\u2019s easy to miss is that the Eagles barely got the play off in time. When I was working on the book \u201cThe Greatest Plays in Eagles History,\u201d I watched 4th\u00a0and 26 with Donovan McNabb in former Eagles PR guy Rich Burg\u2019s office about a dozen times, and he was as surprised as I was that the play clock was winding down from 1 to 0 just as Hank Fraley snapped the ball. Literally another half second and it\u2019s delay of game. Turns out 4th\u00a0and 26 was almost 4th\u00a0and 31.<\/p>\n
6B. Another interesting thing about that play is that it was the longest 4th-quarter reception of Mitchell\u2019s career, regular season or postseason. His next-longest career 4th-quarter catch was a 15-yarder from Jeff Blake in the meaningless late-season loss to the Rams in 2004.<\/p>\n
7. Jalen Hurts Stat of the Week: Hurts has started 82 games, and in 39 of them he\u2019s had at least one touchdown pass and no interceptions. Only two quarterbacks have ever had more games with at least one TD pass and no INTs in their first\u00a0\u00a082 career starts: Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes each had 42. Aaron Rodgers and Justin Herbert also had 39.<\/p>\n
8. What\u2019s your confidence level in Nolan Smith ever paying off as a 1st-round pick? We\u2019re three years in now and other than a flurry late in 2024 and in the postseason, the production just hasn\u2019t been there. Injuries are part of the equation, and he missed five games this year, but the bottom line is even including the postseason he has 15 sacks in three seasons, and that ranks 70th\u00a0in the NFL during that span. People wanted to run Mike Mamula out of town and he had 18 \u00bd sacks his first three years. He was a higher 1st-round pick, but still. The thing about Smith is that there\u2019s clearly something there. We saw it when he had four sacks in the 2024 postseason and 8.0 sacks the last 11 games of the season. He\u2019s fast, strong, athletic and physical, but the production hasn\u2019t matched his traits. You worry that at his size he just won\u2019t hold up for the long haul, especially with way he plays. And three sacks and 14 pressures in 12 games this year is just not good enough for a 1st-round pick and a guy the Eagles are counting on to make life rough for quarterbacks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of 43 edge rushers who started at least 10 games this past season only five had fewer pressures. Smith is eligible for a new contract this offseason, but I\u2019d be really careful about it. Fifth-year option makes the most sense to give Smith a chance to prove he\u2019s worth a big-money extension. The option year would be somewhere around $15 million. So you\u2019re not committing huge money (relatively) but he gets a decent paycheck and an opportunity to prove he\u2019s worth keeping around. He very well could blossom in Year 4. But so far we just haven\u2019t seen enough.<\/p>\n
9.\u00a0Since Nick Sirianni got hired, the Eagles have won more playoff games than the Raiders, Titans, Cards, Browns, Panthers, Vikings, Jets, Falcons, Saints, Colts, Dolphins, Chargers, Steelers, Giants, Bears, Broncos, Cowboys and Packers combined.<\/p>\n
10. Keep an eye out for, \u201cThat\u2019s the Way God Planned It,\u201d a new documentary on the life of the legendary keyboard player Billy Preston, the so-called Fifth Beatle. Jeff Lurie was executive producer for the project, which debuted this weekend in New York in advance of general theatrical release. Preston had a successful solo career \u2013 \u201cWill it Go Round in Circles\u201d in 1973 and \u201cNothing from Nothing\u201d in 1974 both reached No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart – in addition to working as a session musician with artists from Eric Clapton to Elton John to Johnny Cash to Joni Mitchell to Ray Charles. He\u2019s the only musician to play with both the Beatles and Rolling Stones and is probably best-known for his iconic Fender Rhodes solo on the Beatles\u2019 \u201cGet Back,\u201d which is credited to the Beatles and Billy Preston. Preston, a two-time Grammy winner, had a difficult and tragic life and the film explores his drug addiction, sexual abuse as a child and secret homosexuality, which he didn\u2019t reveal until just before he died in 2006. Lurie first told me about the project at a practice at the Jefferson Health Training Complex three years ago, and he said he\u2019s always been intrigued by Preston\u2019s life and had always wanted to produce a film about him. Lurie\u2019s production company previously produced the Oscar-winning documentary, \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d chronicling the forgotten 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival concerts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this week\u2019s Roob\u2019s 10 Random Eagles Offseason Observations, we take a look at the nearly unprecedented youth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[25,4904,7,6,242,109,2476],"class_list":{"0":"post-768982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-eagles","8":"tag-eagles","9":"tag-eagles-blog","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","14":"tag-philadelphiaeagles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116114522520844724","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}