Philly Front Office

Our long local nightmare is over. Getting rid of Kevin Patullo happened quickly after the season ended, but hiring a replacement turned into a different animal. In a world where every interview is reported and dissected, it seemed like the Eagles were getting rejected by everyone. Whether that was true or not is a different story. Finally, with the hiring of Sean Mannion, we can stop with the rumors and finally move on to the offseason. So, who is Sean Mannion anyway?

Eagles Offseason Part 3: Team Needs

Mannion’s rise has been meteoric¹ voyagous. Just 2 years ago, Mannion was still playing QB for the Seattle Seahawks. He wasn’t getting any run, but he was signed to the practice squad and then the active roster in December. That was it though. At age 32, he retired having played in 14 games over 6 seasons. He threw 1 TD pass. Upon retirement, he immediately caught on as an assistant with the Packers. A year later he was the QB coach. A year after that he’s the offensive coordinator for a Super Bowl contender. He is only 35 years old.

That is NOT who we thought the Eagles were going after. The Kevin Patullo experience left us yearning for a veteran play caller, someone to complement our sage defensive guru on the other side of the ball. Initially the team was going after Brian Daboll and Mike McDaniel(s), but they took OC jobs elsewhere. They are former head coaches with the experience and the cache to lead a team. Sean Mannion is the opposite. He is green, but with certain things going in his favor.

Patullo imfamously never called plays before at any level. While the same is true for Mannion, he at least played QB  for Oregon State (and Mike Riley) in college, was drafted in the 3rd round of the NFL Draft, and was in and around the NFL for 10 years. That’s not nothing. Our last OC was a WRs coach. They are not the same.

Why was Kevin Patullo Hired Again?

In that same vein, Patullo’s main offensive muse was Nick Sirianni. Mannion played under Riley, Sean McVey, Pete Carroll, and Matt LaFleur before LaFleur hired him as his assistant. While we may hate these guys for selfish reasons, they are certainly better football minds than anything the Eagles had in the building on offense last year.

Is this a good hire? I have no idea. We were all hoping for experience and I would have rather had McDaniel or Daboll, but they come with their own issues. Not only could there have been leadership clashes with Sirianni, but both would have likely been one and done with a good season. With Mannion being so young and inexperienced, he at least has the possibility of sticking around longer.

I’ve heard people already call him a puppet of management. I don’t think this is true. When you make a new hire or trade for a player, it is usually a good exercise to see how the previous fanbase reacts. Well, everyone from Green Bay seems to have glowing reviews of Mannion. Many even saw him as the possible successor to Matt LaFleur. At the very least, he is seen as having the makeup of a future head coach. If anyone fears he might be overwhelmed by Sirianni, I think those fears are misplaced. He is Sirianni’s eventual replacement if anything.

The big worry here is that the Eagles just took a big chance right in the middle of a Super Bowl window. It is very clear that their defense is legit and the offense kept the team from legitimately defending their title this year. Does Mannion help that? The team seems to think so.

1. Why do we use this word this way? Meteors fall. We need a different term. The Voyager program launched two deep space probes 50 years ago and they are currently 13 and 16 BILLION miles from Earth! Let’s go with “voyagous” ↩︎