Staley is interviewed for Birds’ head coaching job
The Eagles announced Saturday they formally interviewed running backs coach Duce Staley for their vacant head coaching position.
Defending NFL rushing champion, DeMarco Murray, who has 210 fewer carries than last year, was not available for comment.
Sta ley, who turns 41 in Februar y, was interviewed Friday according to the Eagles. He’s been in charge of rotating the Eagles’ running backs the past two seasons.
At the least, Staley would satisfy owner Jeff Lurie’s criteria of relating to today ’s players and understanding the passion it takes to coach in Philly.
Staley was a thirdround pick of the Eagles in 1997 who rushed for 4,807 yards and 22 touchdowns in seven seasons with the club. He spent parts of the next three seasons with the Steelers.
An Eagles assistant the past five seasons, Staley would satisfy the Rooney Rule mandating at least one minority candidate be interviewed for a head coaching job.
For now Staley is first of what could be eral candidates.
During the Rose Bowl Saturday, TV commentator Brent Musburger said he’d had a conversation in which he asked David Shaw, the Stanford coach, if he might be interested in leaving for the NFL.
Shaw basically said no way, “I’m having too much fun.”
It was almost all hugs and giggles as the Cardinal rolled to a 45-16 blowout of Iowa.
That wasn’t the first time Shaw was asked about the NFL. He’s had to tell various NFL emissaries ‘thanks but no thanks’ over the years.
That ha sn’t stopped teams from asking. And you can count on the Eagles, who fired Chip Kelly this past Tuesday, taking the sev- his temperature.
Shaw made more than a seamless transition at Stanford from Jim Harbaugh, who went to the 49ers and now is at Michigan.
Stanford almost always is in the national championship conversation.
Shaw has NFL exper ience, having coached with the Eagles (1997), the Raiders and the Ravens, the latter in 2005.
Shaw has a system the pros use. It can’t hurt to ask him about bringing it to the NFL.
Right now Eagles players Zach Ertz and Ed Rey nolds, who played for Shaw in Palo Alto, Calif., would be surprised if the coach lef t the West Coast.
“I don’t think he’s going to leave Stanford,” Ertz said. “I think he wants his kids to go to Stanford. T hey ’re young so I don’t think he’s going to leave any time soon. When you’re the head coach of Stanford there’s not much, in my opinion, other places to go.”
The longer Ertz spoke about Shaw, the more the coach seemed to check off all the boxes on the wish list of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.
“He’s calm, cool and collected,” Ertz said. “You never see him change his demeanor on the side - line. Whereas Harbaugh is going to throw his clipboard, throw his play sheet. He’s very different. Coach Shaw, he talks to me a lot still. So I think he’s connected to the players. At least once or twice a season we talk and then when I go back to California.”
If you believe the buzz, Hue Jackson, the offensive coordinator of the Bengals, has emerged as a candidate for the Eagles’ vacancy. He’s edgy, creative, quarterback sav v y and has the ultimate head coach experience, having directed the Raiders. Jackson would have no problem structuring an offense around Sam Bradford, the soonto-be free agent quarterback.
Adam Gase, the offensive coordinator of the Bears, is another guy generating interest on the rumor trail.
Whomever the next Eagles’ head coach is, it will help him to know how to set up the locker room. That seems to have been Kelly’s biggest failing.
“I think Chip had great intentions,” Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins said. “I just think the deliver y was one that just wasn’t accepted. I believe you’ve got to fill the locker room with great guys that might not be the most talented but play well as a team. When you hold them accountable you allow your team to basically become the coach’s and your leaders lead their locker room. And once you have that, everybody’s bought in and then it ’s the coach who can just stand back and talk ball and you let your leaders just kind of keep everybody in line.
“When it ’s the coach constantly keeping everybody in line and your leaders don’t have a big role it’s tough to be a cohesive team, especially when you’re going through some adversity.”