This feels like an Occam’s Razor moment for the Eagles.

Mike McDaniel, reportedly one of Philadelphia’s top targets to run the offense in 2026, didn’t just choose the Los Angeles Chargers. He never even interviewed for the position, perhaps because the team couldn’t get him to even agree to a sit down.

What does it say? What does it mean?

For starters, this job clearly isn’t as attractive as we want to imagine. When the top offensive mind on the market says “thanks, but no thanks!” something is amiss.

But perhaps it’s less about five or six reasons why the 2026 Eagles offensive coordinator job isn’t great and more about one simple reason for McDaniel.

Jalen Hurts is a major question mark right now.

You can point to his Super Bowl MVP last February as reason to denounce that statement, but I don’t believe that holds water when it comes to how his trajectory and future is viewed across the NFL.

Instead, consider this. Hurts’ 2025 rankings across key categories were as follows:

Success rate: 30th

Completion percentage: 21st

Yards per attempt: 20th

QBR: 22nd

Net yards per pass attempt: 17th

On-target percentage: 24th

And while it might be easy to blame Kevin Patullo for all those woes, there’s also this: Hurts’ effectiveness and willingness to impact the game with his legs wained in a big way in 2025. I’m not sure he wants to run much moving forward. I’m also not sure he’s much of a runner at this point, and would consider his legs middle-of-the-pack among current starting NFL quarterbacks.

Something tells me McDaniel knows these trends.

In a year in which Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen and Jared Goff need (or needed) new play callers, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that a team with a question mark at quarterback isn’t getting it’s top pick at offensive coordinator.

We talked about the Eagles offensive coordinator spot.

Download WIP Daily! I talked about why Josh Allen causes so many strong emotions from fans.

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