The Philadelphia Eagles' offseason keeps getting worse and worse. Just when it seemed that they had finally got it right by hiring Sean Mannion as their offensive coordinator, Jeff Stoutland decided to walk away.
Stoutland had been the team's offensive line coach for the past 13 years. He was also their run game coordinator, and his departure is a massive blow to Nick Sirianni's coaching staff. Then again, he may have brought him on himself.
According to a report by ESPN insider Tim McManus, Stoutland grew frustrated with Sirianni and then-offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo leaving him out of run game design. Unfortunately, this is just a pattern.
Nick Sirianni is Making the Eagles Undesirable
This isn't the first time an assistant coach hasn't seen eye to eye with Nick Sirianni. He's demoted assistant coaches, has gotten into his players' and coaches' faces, and Big Dom has infamously been his babysitter and protector for years now.
Sirianni's volatile temper, stubbornness, and antics have rubbed plenty of people the wrong way, even the fans. And the fact that not many people seem to want the Eagles' offensive coordinator job, despite having one of the most stacked rosters in the game, speaks volumes about how fellow coaches feel about Sirianni.
Of course, firing a head coach with a 59-26 regular-season record, a 6-4 playoff record, one Super Bowl ring, and two trips to the biggest game in the world wouldn't make much sense. Then again, the Eagles' locker room has been extremely dysfunctional during his time there, and one can also make a case that he's only as good as his assistant coaches.
Nick Sirianni doesn't seem to have too many friends in the league, and it's not like he's the only hot-headed coach out there. The NFL is a close fellowship, and it's all about connections. Once you can't surround yourself with the right people, you're done.
Unfortunately, that's the path the Eagles might be walking down by sticking with Sirianni. Regardless of GM Howie Roseman's Herculean efforts to put together one of the toughest rosters in the game, it's starting to sound like the book on the head coach is that he's just way too difficult to work with.
And now, with the team almost guaranteed to struggle to find a feasible replacement for Stoutland at this point in the offseason, this might finally be the beginning of the end of the Nick Sirianni era in Philadelphia.