Moore The Merrier

When answering for the Eagles’ memorable late-season skid during his end-of-season inquisition in January, head coach Nick Sirianni often cited the need for “fresh ideas.”

And the desire to extend outside Sirianni’s coaching network to bring in new voices and concepts evidently became a prerequisite to restoring order.

Sirianni even went as far as to acknowledge the staleness of his own offense, the foundation of his coaching arsenal.

In a sign that he’s ready to take his hands off the wheel, Sirianni plans to turn the reins over to newly appointed offensive coordinator Kellen Moore.

Complicating matters, though, is the fact that Sirianni – on multiple occasions since Moore’s hiring – has doubled-down on his concept of melding together his philosophies with Moore’s.

While Sirianni will have some say – and as the head coach, he’ll have veto power – it’ll be Moore’s fingerprints over most of the offense.

“I think it’s a really fun process,” Moore said Thursday in his first press conference since being named Eagles offensive coordinator. “Fortunately, like most of us who go into the profession, you have different times in your career where, whether it’s a new coach coming in or you’re going into a new place, people have different exposures.

“The more conversations you can have, the more discussion points. Hey, we had an issue with this. We had a potential answer, vice versa, and you have that continuous conversation.

“It’s been really, really fun. I love the opportunities that we can sit down and just talk about things. I learn from Nick [Sirianni]. Hopefully I can bring some things that people can learn, hopefully from just maybe an experience that I’ve had that’s different than theirs.

“I think that’s part of this whole process. We’ve got a really, really good coaching staff here. There’s a good reason – I was fortunate to bring [Quarterbacks coach] Doug [Nussmeier] and [offensive assistant] Kyle [Valero], but a lot of guys stayed here because we’ve got a really, really good staff.”

GETTY IMAGES: New Eagles OC Kellen Moore has grand visions for the Birds’ offense.

Moore, a former Boise State quarterback who played briefly in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys, most recently served as the offensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Chargers after four seasons fulfilling the same role in Dallas.

Moore said his offense, intricate and innovative by comparison, caters to the strengths of its personnel instead of shoehorning bad fits. It includes play-action and a healthy dose of motion.

The pre-snap shifts, a sparsely implemented wrinkle for the Eagles prior to Moore’s arrival, are intended to reveal information while also creating spacing and drawing favorable matchups.

It’s been a staple of the Moore’s offenses.

“Certainly the shift in motion aspect of it, it probably goes back to how I grew up around the game with my dad being a high school coach, then being in college at Boise State, we kind of used it a lot,” Moore said. “It’s always kind of stuck with me. There’s obviously advantages to it.

“There’s some things that you’re trying to gather information for the defense, and there’s other times you’re simply stressing the defense. So I think there’s those two elements.”

Subtleties, nuance and scheme aside, Moore’s primary objective will be rebuilding quarterback Jalen Hurts into MVP form and accentuating Hurts’ strengths as a signal-caller.

The self-appointed triple threat is deadly as a plus-one in the rushing offense, a game-altering dimension that should become more of a factor with Moore at the controls.

The 2023 tape indicated that far too many plays were left on the field, suggesting Hurts has yet to reach his apex as a passer.

In addition to establishing a rhythmic offense that can consistently remain on schedule, Moore will be tasked with fully unlocking Hurts, who helms arguably the most prolific offense in football.

“I think any time the quarterback room – you always have to be conscious of how many voices are with the quarterback,” he said. “Fortunately, I’ve been around Doug for a number of years, really since he joined our staff in Dallas in 2018. But in 2020 he became the quarterbacks coach. We’ve kind of done this thing together for a number of years now.

“We kind of complement each other in certainly personalities and the way we coach. We can kind of play off of each other, feed off of each other really, really well.

“He does a phenomenal job with the details and the fundamentals just of playing the quarterback position, and he does a great job with that. The more you’re around him, you see him out on the field, the drill work and all the things that he does to tie the pass game together for the quarterback is huge.

“It allows me to kind of stay in the scheme aspect of this thing, to be a little bit more on the philosophical side while still being able to overlap. I think that’s a critical aspect of this thing.”

– Andrew DiCecco (@AndrewDiCecco) is a Staff Reporter/Content Producer for InsideTheBirds.com.