Philadelphia Eagles

Eagles getting clowned for hiring identical coaching staff

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The Eagles are busy at work filling out head coach Nick Sirianni's staff; so far they've hired an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, QBs coach, TEs coach, and more.

For a first-time head coach, the staff you build is one of the more important parts of your initial offseason, and Sirianni has reached into his past to pluck guys from the Colts and Chargers for roles with the Eagles.

He's also... hired a bunch of guys who look a lot like him.

ESPN's Bomani Jones pointed this out on the latest episode of his podcast, "The Right Time", in which he and producer Gabe Basayne joked about Sirianni's staff while discussing new Lions head coach Dan Campbell's surprisingly diverse staff:

"JONES: Have you looked at that staff that they're putting together in Philadelphia?

"BASAYNE: If you've seen some of the pictures, it almost comes across as a joke. They just re-casted The Office.

"JONES: [Laughs] That's really funny, because that is what it looks like.

"But you want to talk about the 'Good To Be White' scenario, what's the guy's name? Sirianni? 

[...]

"They hired this dude, and I looked at, like Gabe said, pictures of the people that he's hiring. It is wall to wall white dudes. Wall to wall white dudes. Goodell gotta just be like, '*sigh* Are you serious?'"

Is Jones right? Let's go to the tape:

Uh... yeah. Those are the same people.

And Jones isn't the only who noticed:

https://twitter.com/cranekicker/status/1354206151383146500

This offseason's hiring cycle, which saw seven openings for head coaching positions and has yet to see a Black man hired for one of those openings, has seemed to press harder than usual on the question of why there aren't more Black head coaches in a league comprised largely of Black men.

As Jones pointed out during his podcast, and as many have pointed out in the recent weeks, pointing out one hiring in particular doesn't matter as much as viewing the actions of all 32 teams as a pattern over time. Black men simply aren't given the same chance as White men.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie likes to think of himself as a progressive man with progressive ideals. Here's what he said at the outset of this coaching search:

"We are very open, and it's top of mind, to make sure that we have some of the best minority candidates in on the search. It's very important for us, for the league."

But his team hasn't had a full-time minority head coach, offensive coordinator, or defensive coordinator this century, which puts him squarely in the middle of that hiring pattern.

There's nothing wrong with Sirianni's hire individually, or any of these coaching hires individually, or even the whole staff itself in a vacuum. And, to be fair, the Eagles' new quarterbacks coach, Brian Johnson, is Black, as is defensive line coach Tracy Rocker. 

It is still, however, certainly emblematic of a recurring theme in the NFL that annually devalues Black football minds in favor of White ones.

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