Eagles should hire Sean McDermott as next head coach

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There are a lot of qualified candidates to fill the Eagles’ head coaching vacancy. You know all the names by now.

Bears offensive coordinator Adam Gase. Bengals offensive coordinator Hue Jackson. Panthers offensive coordinator Mike Shula. Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. Stanford coach David Shaw. Chiefs offensive coordinator Doug Pederson.

One name stands above the rest. The perfect guy to become the Eagles' next head coach is Sean McDermott.

Talk about checking all the boxes.

McDermott grew up in the Philly area, played high school football and wrestled at La Salle High School in Springfield. Played safety alongside Mike Tomlin at William and Mary. Joined the Eagles in 1998 as an intern in the scouting department.

Begged Andy Reid for a job on the football side and worked his way up from entry-level quality control assistant to defensive coordinator.

You know what happened next. McDermott didn’t have the players Jim Johnson had and didn’t have the success his mentor had. Reid fired him after just two years — both playoff years — and replaced him with Juan Castillo.

McDermott became the Panthers' defensive coordinator under Ron Rivera, his former colleague in Philly, and McDermott has spent the last five years growing as a person and a coach while turning the Panthers’ defense into one of the NFL’s best.

Let’s talk numbers. The Eagles on Sunday will become the first team in NFL history to allow 6,000 yards in three straight seasons.

The Panthers? Over the last three years under McDermott, they are fifth-best in the NFL in points allowed, sixth in takeaways, first in sacks, third in yards allowed.

This year’s Panthers are 14-1, and McDermott has drawn raves for the work he’s done. In fact, SI.com just rated him as the No. 2 head coaching candidate this offseason, behind only Jackson.

McDermott is exactly what the Eagles need. An incredible positive personality. A relentlessly hard worker. A local guy who understands how badly Philly fans want a winner in town. A true student of the game with a decade of experience working under legendary Jim Johnson. A coach who started out in personnel, something the Eagles clearly need.

There’s only one player left on the Eagles’ roster who played for McDermott, and that’s Brandon Graham, who was a rookie in 2010.

“I love his intensity, I love the fire he tried to light under players,” Graham said. “He’s not scared to speak up when he sees something. I think he’s a professional. For him, I think he’s a technician, somebody who really studies the game and wants to get it right.

“It would be nice to get a defensive coach in here. It would be nice to hire a coordinator who’s real good at offense and let him take over the defense.”

McDermott spent the 1999 through 2008 seasons working under Reid with Pat Shurmur, and if Lurie wants to create an atmosphere where there’s a great likelihood for Sam Bradford to re-sign here, McDermott could keep Shurmur as offensive coordinator.

Although Shurmur presumably wouldn’t run things exactly the same way Chip Kelly did, at least his scheme would be close enough that the Eagles — even with a new coach — would have a quarterback who wasn’t entirely foreign to the offense.

There’s another reason it would make sense to hire somebody who’s been here before. We all know the track record of people who have tried to work with Howie Roseman around here. Nobody survives. From Louis Riddick to Marc Ross to Jason Licht to Joe Banner to Andy Reid to Ed Marynowitz to Chip Kelly, Roseman has outlasted them all, since Roseman’s word is the word of God with Lurie.

But McDermott and Roseman came up together through the ranks, both starting out as interns in the late 1990s before reaching the top. If anybody knows how to navigate the labyrinthian politics of a Roseman-led Eagles’ front office, it’s somebody who spent a decade with the franchise, starting out in the moldy, rat-infested basement of the Vet a few desks down from Howie.

But more than anything, McDermott is a sharp defensive coach, and we all know how desperately the Eagles’ defense needs a massive overhaul.

McDermott is tough, but he’s a tremendous communicator and motivator with a clear vision and the ability to articulate it and teach it. And even though he was fired after just two years as defensive coordinator, he actually did a terrific job with a terrible staff and not much talent.

The Eagles allowed the ninth-fewest yards in the NFL during McDermott’s two years running the defense here, led the NFL in takeaways and ranked fourth in sacks.

You try to do better than that with Moise Fokou, Macho Harris, Ellis Hobbs, Antonio Dixon, Nate Allen, Akeem Jordan, Sean Jones, Victor Abiamiri, Dimitri Patterson and Omar Gaither among those in the starting lineup.

If Lurie wants a coach that builds culture instead of someone who talks about it, who understands the city like only somebody who was born and raised here can, who has a proven track record with X’s and O’s, who is tremendously respected by his players, McDermott is the guy.

He’s going to be a successful head coach somewhere. May as well be here.

“I see how many good defenses he’s had down there,” Graham said. “I’ve been a part of his defensive scheme here and I know how important pass rush is to him and how important getting third-down stops and turnovers are to him. The same things he emphasized here, that’s what you see Carolina doing the last few years down there.

“I like Sean a lot and I’d love to see him get a shot at it.”

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