When one of the all-time great defensive coaches announces to the world that he wants a job, it's probably in your team's best interest to listen.
On Friday morning, NFL legend and former Eagles defensive coordinator Wade Phillips tweeted that, after a year off from football, he's looking for work:
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The Eagles, you might remember, need a defensive coordinator after Jim Schwartz stepped down. They need a head coach, too, but they seem to be chasing that job down as we speak. So once they find a head coach they like... should Phillips be their next phone call?
Like all defensive coordinators, and particularly one with eight different stops as DC, his tenure has its ups and its downs, but Phillips showed an adaptability during the last decade that led to some of the stingiest defenses in the league during his years in Houston, Denver, and Los Angeles between 2011 and 2019.
From 2011 to 2016, between Houston and Denver, he oversaw a string of defenses that ranked in the Top 8 in yards allowed, and outside of 2013, in the Top 10 in points allowed and takeaways created. And in Los Angeles, the Rams' defenses were regularly in the Top 10 in takeaways created. Not bad.
It helped that those teams had elite talent like J.J. Watt, Von Miller, and Aaron Donald, but he also got the best out of his best players - something that would be nice to see with Fletcher Cox after 2020, which some could consider a bit of a down year for the All-Pro talent.
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Phillips, 73, doesn't exactly represent an infusion of youth and excitement, but adding someone with such a wealth of knowledge about the game and who clearly still has a fire for coaching wouldn't be a bad idea. It likely comes down to who lands the head coaching job.
The Eagles could also look at promoting defensive line coach Matt Burke, or trying to land someone like Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo, who they're interviewing for the head coach opening this week.
We'll see where they take things.
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