Darius Slay says Eagles DB coach Dennard Wilson should be a defensive coordinator (and his teammates agree)

The Eagles haven’t hired Jonathan Gannon’s replacement just yet, but there’s one internal candidate getting the players’ support.

The Eagles have interviewed a handful of candidates to fill Jonathan Gannon’s former role as Defensive Coordinator, but on Friday night, some of the players voiced their support of an internal candidate: DB Coach/Defensive Passing Game Coordinator Dennard Wilson.

There have been a few unconventional staff hires throughout the league the past couple days, and veteran CB Darius Slay pointed out that Wilson’s experience set him up for a bigger role.

Wilson has 15 years of NFL experience. He started out as a scout for the Bears in 2008, and then worked up to Defensive Quality Control for the Rams in 2012 before being promoted by the team in 2015 to DB Coach. He left for the Jets in 2017 and was promoted to Passing Game Coordinator in 2019, before ultimately joining head coach Nick Sirianni’s staff in 2021.

After years of a shaky, at best, secondary in Philly, the right combination of roster moves and Wilson’s coaching, resulted in a much more impactful group the past two seasons. The DB coach also got a lot of credit for having undrafted rookie Reed Blankenship ready to step in and execute at a high level when C.J. Gardner-Johnson was injured in 2022.

Slay wasn’t the only member of the Eagles’ secondary to share this opinion about Wilson’s potential, either.

Near the end of the season, Sirianni said that they had a list of internal and external candidates if Gannon, and OC Shane Steichen, got head coaching jobs. Wilson didn’t follow to Gannon to Arizona, so it’s possible that he’s in the discussion to be the new DC — and it should carry some weight that his players would support that move by the team.