How committed are the Eagles to fixing Carson Wentz? Not as committed as you may think, says Joe Banner

Former Eagles president Joe Banner is doing a weekly Q&A with Inquirer pro football writer Paul Domowitch. This week, the two discuss the hiring of Nick Sirianni as head coach; what it means -- or doesn’t mean -- for Carson Wentz; whether the Eagles need to hire a minority coordinator; and Sunday’s AFC championship game meeting between Buffalo’s Sean McDermott and Kansas City’s Andy Reid:

Domo: Your thoughts on the hiring of Nick Sirianni?

JB: He obviously is a projection, as any of these coordinators are. So the challenge will be the leadership. The most important thing a head coach does is hire his staff and manage that staff. So it’ll be interesting to see who his offensive and defensive coordinators are going to be. I assume at least one of them will have fairly significant experience in the league because people like to balance first-time head coaches who are a little younger with experience.

There’s reason to be hopeful. He’s not coming from a super-progressive, creative-scheme history. So it’ll be interesting to see. The Eagles have always preferred, especially on offense, being on the front end or even ahead of the curve with respect to creativity and aggressiveness. But when guys get put in charge, they don’t always follow that.

But they’ve hired a solid, high-character guy who players feel very good about. So the next important checkmark will be, who are his key hires? Then we’ll have a much better sense as to where this is all headed.

Domo: Some have compared Sirianni’s hiring to you and Jeffrey Lurie hiring Andy Reid in 1999. Do you see any similarities?

JB: I think that’s a bad analogy. I just don’t see it at all. There were seven teams looking for coaches this year. I know for a fact that at least five of them had this guy on their radar, researched him, asked people about him. For whatever reason, they decided he wasn’t the right guy, but he was on their radar.

I actually think that, based on their actions and the people they were talking to, that they wanted to break away from that feeling that they were chasing the past. If you look at the people that they were significantly interested in – some that came in and some that didn’t -- I think they were actually trying to have a fresh start with somebody that would bring a new perspective.

Now, I still think they preferred an offensive guy. I think they preferred somebody who’s aggressive and not afraid of risk. I think they wanted somebody that has at least a comfort and an open mind toward analytics. Somebody who is going to bring in a really good defensive coordinator. Those are some of the similarities.

But I do think they kind of wanted to say, “Let’s bring in a whole new mindset to the organization.” A different style of leadership. A different kind of chain of how somebody got here and who they learned from and worked with.

Domo: Do they need to let Sirianni pick his own staff after what happened with Doug Pederson?

JB: Their relationship with Doug was at least affected by his view that they weren’t giving him the respect and space to pick his own staff. I think they have to be really careful about that.

On a philosophical level, I think they already will have discussed with him the importance of balance on his staff. But hopefully, they will leave it up to Nick as far as whether he agrees with that, and if he does, who are the right people to hire to achieve that. And if he doesn’t agree, they need to be comfortable in trusting him. Because he’s now steering the ship. That doesn’t mean you can’t give him ideas or suggestions. That doesn’t mean you won’t discuss it. But in the end, you have to step back and trust that he’s going to put together the right guys for what he intends to do.

Domo: The other finalist in the Eagles’ coaching search was Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. Josh has more experience than Nick. He’s been a head coach before. Were you surprised they passed on him?

JB: I can’t say I was. Everybody who has interviewed Josh for a while now, it’s a very tough decision. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him and interviewing him. He’s very smart. He presents extremely well. He has some very open-minded and progressive thoughts about offense and the game.

On the other hand, he has had a chance as a head coach. And it’s not just that he didn’t win. It was a disaster. So stories out of Denver, whether it was the players’ reaction to him or the coaches on his staff, when you do the research, they’re concerning. But it was a long time ago, and if you talk to him now, he’ll tell you he learned a lot from it.

So you’re sitting there asking yourself, do we trust that he’s changed enough that we’re not at risk of experiencing any version of what happened in Denver? Or do we feel like this is just who he is and at some point it’s going to come out?

So, you’re weighing the advantages of his experience and the organization he’s been a part of and how smart he is against the fear that he’s had such a bad experience, and can you really predict a different outcome? So I was not surprised that they interviewed him and liked him and then struggled about what the right thing to do was.

I’m anxious for him to get another job because I’m really curious to see how it turns out. To see which way it goes. Because he can’t be who he was in Denver or he won’t succeed. My view is there is some meaningful risk to hiring Josh. But there also is some really high potential upside.

Domo: What did you think of their search process?

JB: Once they got started, I think they did a good job. I had the benefit of talking to people they were talking to and hearing the extent of the research they were doing. I think they were extremely thorough. I think they did a very good job in terms of getting in touch with the right people to learn as much as they could about the candidates.

That said, they started basically eight days late. So that did have a consequence. I’m sure that’s not the way they’re going to phrase it. But it did. Some of the options that they would’ve probably at least liked to have explored weren’t really there. And that creates a challenge.

So what you’re really doing is, you try to see, is there somebody that people really like but maybe they think it’s a year early (to hire them)? And then you’re into that market vs. just the people that at the moment seem like the top candidates. That’s been successful for them in the past. That’s how Doug was viewed.

Domo: What do you think the impact of Sirianni’s hiring is going to be on Carson Wentz’s future?

JB: I actually think this is neutral or more likely to mean Carson isn’t coming back. I know everybody else is saying the opposite. But Sirianni isn’t a guy that has some broad track record of developing quarterbacks or creating schemes that are really intricate. So it’s not like they would have any great confidence that he’s going to come in and make Carson look like the quarterback he was in 2017.

It could be neutral. They could be where they were before they started the search where they wanted to try and fix Carson but also were willing to consider the possibility of trading him and moving forward with Jalen Hurts.

Or it could be, they don’t want to bring in a new coach who doesn’t have a ton of experience and start with him having to figure out who gets what reps in practice, and who in the locker room favors this guy over that guy. This situation presents a lot of challenges to a new coach coming in. As we discussed last week, it’s one of the reasons they had trouble attracting some top candidates.

You want to create a different attitude and culture under a new coach. You want it to become his team very quickly. To have him spend the next four months tutoring and developing and hoping he’s making progress with a quarterback that last year didn’t play near well enough to be a starter isn’t ideal.

So my first belief is that the narrative that’s taking form about them bringing Wentz back and trying to fix him, I don’t necessarily think it’s true.

Domo: Lurie said at his press conference last week that “it behooves us as a team with a new coach and a new coaching staff to be able to really get Carson back to that elite progression.” Are you saying that’s not etched in stone?

JB: That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m not saying he was wrong. I’m not saying he wasn’t being truthful. Like I said earlier, if their search had been driven by finding somebody with just an incredible track record of developing quarterbacks, I’d be more convinced they were committed to fixing Wentz.

I just think they hired a guy who is a solid guy that they think will be a leader and set the right tone and get players to play hard, and hopefully put together a really good staff that he manages.

I think the quarterback thing was to the side. And I think that means they’re open to going in either direction, and probably somewhat worried about the risks of having both of them there from Day 1 with a new coach who’s trying to set a tone.

Domo: But the Eagles haven’t even been in touch with Hurts since his exit interview three weeks ago. Seems like an odd way to do things if you’re truly considering the possibility of him being your starting quarterback in 2021.

JB: I agree. Whether he’s coming back to compete with Wentz, or whether they’re going to put their eggs in his basket for the immediate future, or even if they expect him to return as the backup, they should really want him to be feeling good about things, to feel respected, appreciated. They should want to minimize the risk that if they keep them both, there’s any kind of division between them. And part of the way you do that is you keep hugging both of them.

They need to be very conscious of the risk of a division in the locker room developing. There’s a big difference between players having a preference as to who they’d rather see play and actually getting in somebody’s camp and even start to advocate for them.

I think they’re OK with that right now. But they’re really at a high risk of not being OK with that if they don’t handle it right. So they have to manage the relationships and the conversations with both of these guys, both privately and publicly. They need to be talking with the leaders on the team. If I’m the new coach, I’m talking to those key guys right away. And I expect that will happen.

You can’t just let it go where it goes. You have to take control of it and push it in the direction you want it to be.

Domo: To Jeff’s credit, the first head coach he hired after buying the Eagles was Ray Rhodes, who is Black. But over the last 20-plus years, the team has not had a minority offensive or defensive coordinator. Given the emphasis the NFL has placed on minority hiring, does one of Sirianni’s coordinators need to be a minority?

JB: There’s outside pressure, to be sure. I think Jeff’s history, more importantly in life and to some extent in the NFL, is he cares about this cause and would like to see progress made.

On the other hand, he’s going to have his happiness affected over the next few years by how well this team plays and how good they are.

I think in the end, he’ll be very open-minded about hiring minority candidates, and I think the coaching staff certainly will represent significant diversity. But I think he’s going to hire whomever, in combination with Nick, is most likely to give him the best chance to win.

Domo: The league had seven head-coaching openings and seven GM openings. Three of the seven GM jobs have been filled by minorities. But just one of the six head-coaching jobs that have been filled went to a minority. That was the Jets’ Robert Saleh. And he just cancels out the firing of the Chargers’ Anthony Lynn, leaving the league with only four minority head coaches. How frustrated is the league right now, given all of the things they’ve done to try to improve the minority numbers?

JB: The easy, quick answer is I think the league is disappointed. Everybody had hoped there would be a little more progress this year than there has been. Now, that said, I still talk to a lot of owners and people running teams. Still talk to a lot of people in the league office.

It seems ridiculous to ask for patience when people have been hanging around for a hundred years waiting for something to happen. But the mindset behind the scenes and the commitment to making progress in this area, at the moment, people just kind of have to have some trust. Which based on history probably is an unreasonable ask. But it’s changed very, very dramatically.

We may not see the full benefit of that for another two, three, four years. And during that time it’s not going to look good and it’s going to be frustrating. I care deeply about this issue and I’m frustrated with where we’re at. But for the very first time, from talking to people around the league, I feel that we’re finally on the right track. People in the league finally realize how important it is to fix this. You’re seeing a change in who’s being hired at the lowest levels in personnel departments and who’s being hired as quality-control coaches.

For the very first time, I finally believe that the issue is understood and appreciated and there are steps being taken that reflect that, and over a relatively short period of time, are going to make a significant difference.

I’m acknowledging that the results from this year, in my mind, showed a very small piece of progress, and it was disappointing that there wasn’t more. But we’re actually finally set up with the right people in power, with the right attitude, and the right priority. There’s an understanding that this isn’t just a head-coach thing. They know it has to be fixed through the entire league. And that leaves me confident that we’re actually going to see some real progress over this in a relatively short period of time.

Domo: Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott will face his old boss Andy Reid Sunday in the AFC championship dame. Sean is one of 10 former Reid assistants who went on to become NFL head coaches. But you actually hired him a year before Andy arrived as a ground-level scouting administrator. What do you remember about him back then?

JB: When we met him we were all incredibly impressed and immediately realized we needed to get him in the building. I remember Tom Modrak and me having a big debate about whether he should start working under Tom in scouting or under me. Because Sean, who had just graduated from William & Mary, where he was a teammate of Mike Tomlin’s, had an interest in the salary cap and contracts and was interested in learning more about negotiating.

So we all wanted him. Then we hired Andy the next year and he said, “The hell with both of you. I’m taking him over to coaching.”

Domo: Sean ended up replacing the legendary Jim Johnson as the team’s defensive coordinator in 2009 when Jim got cancer. But two years later, Andy fired him. Andy felt the pressure of following Jim was weighing too heavy on him. Your thoughts on that.

JB: As it played out, it was more of a problem for us than it was for him. I say that because – and this is with the benefit of hindsight – he was actually doing a good job and I think had a chance to do a great job.

I think the problem was, between Andy, myself, Jeff, and others that were involved in the discussion, our expectations coming out of Jim probably set the bar too high too quickly. So he was actually doing a good job and handling the situation extremely well and setting us up for success. But because our expectations were too high, we probably got impatient without basis.

There was a fairly solid consensus that we should make a change, which looking back, was a mistake. We should have given him more time and we would have been rewarded for it.

Domo: It worked out OK for Sean. Andy persuaded Ron Rivera to hire him as his defensive coordinator in Carolina and the rest is history. Sean made his peace with Andy long ago, and on Sunday, he’ll be coaching against Big Red in the AFC championship game. Andy has never enjoyed coaching against his former assistants. Your thoughts on them facing each other Sunday?

JB: They’re good friends. They’re very close. But Sean’s going to want to beat the teacher and Andy’s going to want to prove that he’s still the master, but nice to see you coming along. There will be an undertone of that competition between them.

Andy didn’t enjoy coaching against [his Packers mentor] Mike Holmgren or anybody that worked for him. But when he had to play them, he actually cared more about winning. Against people you care about and people you respect, you want them to think you’re good. There will be a little extra there Sunday, though at this point, with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of extra left.