Eagles offensive coordinator Brian Johnson appeared to be a candidate for three head coaching vacancies but that’s now down to two.
The Panthers are no longer expected to interview Johnson for their opening, Joe Person of The Athletic reported.
While the Panthers announced 11 official interviews, Johnson was not among them and the Panthers have reportedly moved on.
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Johnson, 36, is no longer a candidate for the job in Carolina but he has interviewed with the Falcons and the Titans for their openings. So there’s still a chance Johnson could end up getting a head coaching gig after just one iffy season as the Eagles’ offensive coordinator.
The Eagles and Johnson are in a bit of a weird position.
The Eagles’ coaching staff is in a state of flux right now. They haven’t even put out definitive word that head coach Nick Sirianni is returning but it was Sirianni who fired defensive coordinator Sean Desai, who had already been demoted during the season. There’s a chance that Johnson won’t return to the coaching staff in 2024 anyway but he also happens to be a legitimate head coaching candidate in this cycle.
The Eagles aren’t going to fire a guy who could get hired away, especially not now. Because the Eagles would get draft compensation if Johnson is hired as a head coach. If Johnson is hired as a head coach, the Eagles would receive third-round compensatory picks in each of the next two drafts because of the league’s rule to help develop minority coaches and executives. (These comp picks come after comp picks for losing free agents.)
NFL
The Eagles’ offense was still better than average in 2023 but it wasn’t elite and that was a problem, especially after they returned 9 of 11 starters from the Super Bowl team in 2022. Johnson replaced former OC Shane Steichen, who moved on to be the head coach in Indianapolis after two seasons as the Eagles’ OC.
Johnson had been the Eagles’ quarterbacks coach for those previous two seasons. He was promoted last offseason and was replaced by his former assistant QBs coach Alex Tanney.
Before joining the Eagles, Johnson was the offensive coordinator at Florida in 2020 and was previously their quarterbacks coach. Before that, he worked at Houston, Mississippi State and Utah. The Eagles job was his first coaching job in the NFL.
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