Shane Steichen excited to see Eagles' hybrid offense in 2024
Shane Steichen excited to see Eagles' hybrid offense in 2024 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
ORLANDO, Fla. — Shane Steichen didn’t get to watch the Eagles play very much last season.
Which means he didn’t see a lot of that epic collapse.
But the Colts head coach and former Eagles offensive coordinator on Monday at the NFL’s annual league meetings said he’s excited to see the new hybrid offense from Nick Sirianni and Kellen Moore.
“I think it’ll be great, Nick and Kellen,” Steichen said. “Kellen’s a bright mind, obviously. I think it’ll be a great collaboration with those two.”
The Eagles fell apart down the stretch in 2023, which led to the firing of both coordinators and a reset of sorts for the organization. On defense, the Eagles hired veteran defensive coordinator and former head coach Vic Fangio. That seems pretty straightforward. Fangio is going to run the defense.
But there’s more intrigue on offense, where the Eagles hired Moore to replace Brian Johnson as offensive coordinator. Johnson lasted just one season as the Eagles’ OC following his promotion after Steichen left. And now the Eagles have brought in Moore, the former OC with the Cowboys and Chargers, and Sirianni has talked about a meshing of two offensive systems.
In a perfect world, that meshing works and the Eagles are able to extract the successful elements from both offenses and blend them together cohesively.
But there also seems to be a possibility of disaster.
“Yeah we’ll see how that thing goes,” Steichen said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Kellen and Nick. Both obviously really good football coaches. Excited to see their 2024 season.”
Both Steichen and former defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon left Philadelphia for head coaching jobs after the 2022 Super Bowl season. Gannon went to Arizona and Steichen to Indianapolis.
In his first season as the head coach in Indy, the Colts went 9-8 and made it to the playoffs, even after the loss of starting quarterback and first-round pick Anthony Richardson. It was a promising season for the first-year head coach.
Meanwhile, the Eagles went from being the league’s No. 3 offense in 2022 to 7th in points and 8th in yards. Still good, but far from elite. And many fans and pundits wondered about the correlation between that drop-off and the loss of Steichen.
“Yeah, I didn’t follow a ton,” Steichen said. “Obviously, watching the tape, we didn’t have a lot of crossover games. Obviously, I saw the record and stuff. But I think offensively, they were top 10 in almost every category again. So they were darn good offensively last year.”
Steichen said he and Sirianni didn’t talk a lot during the season; it’s a busy time for NFL head coaches. But he has caught up with Sirianni since the season ended.
In 2024, Sirianni will enter his fourth year at the helm after the Eagles lost six of seven in 2023, including a first-round playoff exit in Tampa. While both coordinator positions and many position coach spots have turned over, Sirianni remains in place with a chance to turn things around.
This is the most adversity Sirianni has faced in his career as a head coach. The most he saw before 2023 came in 2021, when he was able to pull the Eagles out of a rough 2-5 start to make the playoffs. He wasn’t able to pull them out of anything in 2023.
How does Steichen think Sirianni will handle the adversity as he enters 2024?
“I think he’ll be great,” Steichen said. “Obviously, he loves football, he loves grinding. The person he is. Shoot, you go attack every season, every year is a new year. You attack it the right way with the right mindset and you go out and give it your best and see what happens.”
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