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After a long aggressive search for over a month, Chip Kelly believes he has found the right guy to lead this defense back to greatness. On Thursday Geoff Mosher from CSNPhilly.com reported that the Eagles have signed former Browns linebackers coach Billy Davis to run Kelly’s 3-4 defense.
Courtesy of Jim Kempski(@Jimmy_Beast) from BloggingTheBeast.com!
The 47 year old Davis has been around the league for a long time starting in 1992 with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a defensive assistant with Bill Cowher and has gone around the league at various positions with the Carolina Panthers, Green Bay Packers, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons. He was also on his second stint with the Cleveland Browns as their linebackers coach from 2011-2012. So at least the man has prior experience coaching on the defensive side and running a defense.
This will be Davis’ third stint as a defensive coordinator. He was the coordinator under Mike Nolan in San Francisco from 2005-2006 and with the Arizona Cardinals from 2009-2010 where his defenses were suspect at best with an average defense of 26th overall, 21st against the run, 26th against the pass and 26.5 in points allowed. Granted I’m not trying to make excuses but those were some pretty lousy teams with some lousy offenses.
And more importantly he has the experience coaching a 3-4 defensive scheme prior to coming here which is what Kelly wants to do. I know the fan base isn’t overly ecstatic about the hiring but he is a solid defensive mind that has been on some underwhelming teams. He has experience coaching linebackers and has developed some good talent since being in the league.
I know he isn’t 49ers Ed Donatell or Ravens Ted Monachino like we have been suspecting for weeks now when a hire hasn’t been announced but most likely those teams would have declined the Eagles from talking to them. San Francisco already denied the Saints from interviewing their secondary coach for the second straight year. And after the Ravens brought home the Lombardi Trophy, they are trying to repeat the same success by keeping as many components as possible.
This move hasn’t been officially announced yet by the Eagles but now with Kelly having his projected staff that we have heard for the past month it should be made official soon. So Davis becomes the 4th Eagles Defensive Coordinator since the passing of the late Jim Johnson in 2009, Sean McDermott, Juan Castillo, Todd Bowles and now Billy Davis!
