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Trotter: McDermott wasn't ready

As the Eagles continue to search for their next defensive coordinator, reaction to Sean McDermott's firing continues to trickle in.

McDermott's already landed a new job in Carolina and turned down an offer to become defensive coordinator of the Broncos, according to the Daily News' Les Bowen.

But for whatever reason (here's a look at the numbers), McDermott didn't work out here.

And one former player says he's not surprised.

Jeremiah Trotter, who played 13 games (starting seven) in 2009 for McDermott, doesn't think McDermott was ready for the job.

"I may be the only guy in the city that wasn't surprised," Trotter said during an interview with Derrick Gunn of Comcast Sportsnet. "The writing was on the wall, and especially a lot of things that happened last year during the course of the year and then going into this year, Sean digressed as a coordinator. The defense went backwards. It was worse in the red zone. And we had a better year last year on defense. So any time you see a young coach that in my opinion really wasn't quite ready to step into that defensive coordinator role just yet, and have two bad seasons, sometimes you just gotta cut your losses."

I mentioned this in a weekend post, but in case you miseed it, Trotter also said on WIP that he spoke to an Eagles defensive player this year who called McDermott the worst defensive coordinator he had ever played for.

Trotter was asked during the CSN interview if he thought McDermott tried too hard to put his own stamp on the defensive system that Johnson ran.

"Oh yeah, without a doubt," he said. "Any time you got a legend like Jim Johnson... I said before that if Jim Johnson had gotten fired because he didn't get the job done, then you come in and change things up. But Jim Johnson's a legend around here. I think he's a Hall of Famer. And when you do something that works for 10 years and you were really great at it, you want to try to duplicate those things when you come in as a young coordinator. You don't come in and try to put your own stamp on things. Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

To be fair, Johnson was McDermott's mentor. He talked constantly about what he learned from Johnson and how he was trying to use those things. McDermott's job was to carry out Johnson's system, but to also add his own wrinkles.

Those wrinkles obviously did not always work, and now McDermott will get a chance to try again with the Panthers.

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