IS TAKING DOC TO SEE THE DOC
Truth is, nobody in the media knows what's up with the Eagles' defensive coordinator situation. But the four-day getaway former Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo outlined in his one interview, with St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell, ends today or tomorrow.
So Spagnuolo ought to be ready by tomorrow to start evaluating where he goes from here. The widespread assumption is that one of his options is some sort of role with the Eagles -- either replacing Juan Castillo as defensive coordinator or coming in above Castillo as something like assistant head coach/defense.
One thing we do know: Eagles coach Andy Reid hasn't scheduled his season wrapup news conference with reporters, and Reid is out of town all week, until Sunday. So the Eagles won't be hiring or firing any coordinator-level employees this week.
It was made clear last week that Reid wouldn't speak until the coordinator situation was resolved, to avoid a repeat of last year's strong endorsement of Sean McDermott, issued as Reid was negotiating McDermott's departure for Carolina.
Now we're seeing people interpret the long delay as an indication Castillo's role will be unchanged. I don't see that. If Castillo was going to be the coordinator in 2012, the Eagles would want to say so, as soon as possible, and put an end to the speculation. I think it's pretty likely that Castillo's role will change.
One thought I've seen experessed is that the firing of secondary coach Johnnie Lynn gives the Birds a place to stash Castillo. I dunno. An NFL position coach really needs to know a lot of nuance -- more than a coordinator does, really. A guy who coaches cornerbacks, as Lynn did here, needs to be able to refine a professional player's backpedal and hip turn and so on. It's true that Juan worked in the offseason with his son Greg, an Iowa cornerback. But fine-tuning your son and fine-tuning Nnamdi Asomugha are two very different things.
Today, on NFL.com, Jason LaCanfora did a sort of coordinator opening roundup in which he posited that Spagnuolo, a former Jim Johnson assistant, is expected to return to the Eagles by the end of the week. Dunno if that's "expected" as in, "somebody with the Eagles or close to Spagnuolo told me this," or "expected" as in, "this is what everybody seems to be saying."
At any rate, a source close to the situation told your Eagletarian that Reid is out of town until Sunday night, so I'm gonna say that Spagnuolo is NOT going to be back with the Eagles by the end of the week. Not officially, anyway.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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