The Philadelphia Eagles Can't Buy A Coach

We've had our laughs about the various coaching firings and hirings in the NFL in the wake of the NFL's Black Monday: Getting rid of Lovie Smith made no sense, Rex Ryan went to the Bahamas and everyone thought maybe he'd been fired, Doug Marrone got hired on the strength of sort of turning around Syracuse, Ron Chudzinski has a funny name. The coaching carousel is always fun. This time of the NFL season, however—the time in which good teams are locked in playoff battles and hope springs eternal for bad teams with new coaches and high draft picks—gets less funny and more farcical the longer a coaching search goes on.

A while back, Chip Kelly was the man for the Eagles, stolen away from the Browns, wined and dined, and triumphantly brought into the fold, heralding a new day. That fell apart when Kelly spurned both the Browns and the Eagles to return to Oregon. Then, all eyes looked to Brian Kelly, who was the leading candidate for the Eagles job as recently as yesterday. The two parties had meetings this week, but this afternoon, Kelly announced his return to Notre Dame:

So another one bites the dust. Bruce Arians and Jay Gruden are on their list too, but it's safe to say people in Philadelphia are getting restless. Is there anyone out there with the celebrity and bombast to satisfy Philly fans? Is there anyone out there with the heft to fill Andy Reid's couch groove? The Eagles' front office had better dispatch someone to whatever beach Rob Ryan is on, and quick:

[ Twitter]

Update, 6:36 p.m.: The Eagles released a statement that addresses this line of thought about their coaching search:

There is no question we spent a considerable amount of time and effort looking at who we thought were the best collegiate candidates for our head coaching job. We did so knowing that there was a remote chance that these coaches would leave their current posts.

We understood that going into the process, but we wanted to leave no stone unturned while trying to find the best head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles. We have no regrets about the effort we made in that direction and we will continue to proceed as planned in our search.