Darius Slay: Fired Eagles DB coach Dennard Wilson ‘would have been better’ than the best efforts of Sean Desai, Matt Patricia
“I think he would have made a lot of difference," Slay said. "He was loved by us. I thought, for sure, he should have stayed.”
Last winter, after the Eagles went to the Super Bowl, Darius Slay campaigned for defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson to replace Jonathan Gannon as the team’s defensive coordinator. Wilson didn’t get the job, and head coach Nick Sirianni fired him.
Wednesday, after the Eagles spent two months mired in a historic collapse authored mainly by its aimless, disorganized defense, I asked Slay if Wilson, now the DB coach for the Ravens’ elite defense, would have made a difference in Philadelphia.
“I think he would have made a lot of difference,” Slay replied. “He was loved by us. I thought, for sure, he should have stayed.”
As the defensive coordinator or the defensive backs coach?
“It would have been better, regardless,” Slay said. “Either way.”
This time last year, Wilson was the defensive backs coach of a Super Bowl team that led the NFL in pass defense in 2022. When Gannon left to be Arizona’s head coach, Sirianni interviewed Wilson but settled on Sean Desai, a chief defensive assistant in Seattle who’d been the coordinator in Chicago in 2021 and a defensive backs coach before that. As insurance, Sirianni then hired Matt Patricia as a senior assistant. Patricia won three Super Bowls as a Patriots assistant before a failed stint as the Lions’ head coach and, last season, a failed season as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator.
Sirianni stripped Desai of his play-calling privileges after Game 13. Patricia took over. The defense got worse: In Patricia’s five games as play-caller, all against poor offenses with lousy quarterbacks, the defense surrendered an average of 27.8 points. The Eagles were 10-1 but lost six of their last seven games, culminating Monday in a 32-9 wild-card humiliation in Tampa, Fla.
Slay was careful to not disparage the efforts of either Desai or Patricia, but earlier he told a group of reporters Sirianni’s midseason switch was hard for the players to manage.
“Trying to find two identities of a coach is tough,” said Slay, who then offered this awkward simile: “It’s like having, like, two marriages. You know how hard two marriages would probably be? To have a household [with] two personalities of two women? That’s tough.”
Pause.
“No offense to the women,” he said, turning to a woman reporter. “That’s crazy talk. One might want her feet rubbed, one might want her shoulders rubbed.”
» READ MORE: Blame Nick Sirianni? James Bradberry? Jalen Hurts? Howie Roseman? OK. It was a group effort, Eagles.
With Wilson, the Eagles were No. 1 against the pass in 2022. Without him, they ended the 2023 season 31st, or second to last.
Slay made three straight Pro Bowls in Detroit but clashed with Patricia, speeding his arrival in Philadelphia in 2020. Slay and Patricia have buried the hatchet, they insist.
However, Slay last winter publicly stumped for Wilson to be hired as DC. So did starting safeties Marcus Epps and C.J. Gardner-Johnson.
Sirianni instead fired Wilson and promoted assistant defensive backs coach D.K. McDonald.
“D.K. is a great coach as well,” Slay told me. “But Dennard’s been in the game a long time. Even played in the league.”
Wilson, who played at Maryland and landed on the Commanders’ practice squad in 2004, is in his 16th NFL season as a scout or coach. McDonald, who played at Edinboro, joined the Eagles and the NFL from the college ranks three years ago.
Was Slay upset when he learned that Wilson was fired?
“I for sure was,” Slay admitted. “I’ve had two great defensive backs coaches. Tony Oden in Detroit and Dennard Wilson.”
Oden is now with the Jets, who ranked third in passing yards allowed in 2022 and second this season. Wilson’s Ravens were sixth, but teams routinely fell behind and had to pass to try and come back. The Ravens defense finished ranked first in points allowed and second in takeaways.
Wilson’s departure was as sudden as it was shady.
Last year, an unspecific source told the NFL’s website, NFL.com, that the sides were “mutually parting ways.” The Inquirer quickly debunked that spin. Sources told me last year, and have corroborated since, that Sirianni hired Desai, met with Wilson, believed he would not work well with Desai, and, despite Wilson’s assurances to the contrary, Sirianni fired him.
» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni courts mutiny by firing DB coach Dennard Wilson after snubbing him as Eagles DC
Slay supported that notion Wednesday.
“He told me he was willing to be the DB coach,” Slay said.
Apparently, the departure of Wilson, and perhaps Gannon, left a vacuum of accountability.
“I always hold myself accountable, but it’s always a greater feeling to feel that your coach will hold you accountable to a high, high level, too,” said Slay, who left Monday’s game with a back injury.
The Eagles might point to injury and youth as a reason for their defense’s drop-off, but in 2022, injuries to nickel corner Avonte Maddox and Gardner-Johnson forced young players like Reed Blankenship, Josiah Scott, and K’Von Wallace into duty, and the Eagles still led the league in pass defense. When the injury bug bit this season, Josh Jobe, Eli Ricks, Kelee Ringo, and Sydney Brown were not equal to the task. Slay believes Wilson would have gotten more from them.
“He’s real good with young guys,” Slay said.
Coaching young players requires clear, consistent communication and connection. While Sirianni preaches the importance of connectivity, he seems to have replaced a great communicator in Wilson with less relatable coaches worried about being overly critical.
“He wasn’t a guy who just came in the room and said, ‘This is what we do. Done,’ “ Slay said. “He put some life aspects to it. And he was an honest dude.”
And a hard-core coach.
“Defense is a mentality. He has the right mentality to lead people in the right direction,” Slay said. “When he speaks it, you can understand and, like, feel what he’s speaking on.”
Wilson took that mentality to Baltimore, where, once again, he enjoyed a first-round bye as a No. 1 seed, led by a dynamic defense. Slay couldn’t be happier for him.
“Always rooting for Dennard. Hope he gets a DC job this year,” Slay said. “He’s got a great chance to win it all this year, too.”
You wonder if the Eagles would have just as great a chance right now if Sirianni hadn’t fired his best defensive coach. At any rate, as Slay said, things would have been better.
As for Wilson getting a coordinator’s job ... well, there might be an opening again in Philadelphia soon enough.