Category: Eagles/NFL

The Eagles have their replacement for longtime offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland.

A league source confirmed an NFL Network report that the Eagles are hiring Minnesota Vikings offensive line coach Chris Kuper for the same role in Philadelphia. Kuper’s contract with Minnesota expired after the season and the team did not retain him, according to The Athletic.

Kuper, 43, had been the line coach for the Vikings since 2022 and crossed paths there with new Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion in 2023, when Mannion was on the roster as a quarterback.

Kuper, who was drafted in the fifth round in 2006 and played guard for the Denver Broncos for eight seasons, also worked as an assistant offensive line coach under Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio when Fangio was the head coach in Denver from 2019 to 2021.

Kuper has big shoes to fill. Stoutland was the Eagles’ offensive line coach from 2013 to 2025 and was widely regarded as the best line coach in the NFL. Stoutland announced his departure from the Eagles last week. The Eagles are moving to a new scheme under Mannion, and while Stoutland was offered a chance to return as offensive line coach, according to a source, he wasn’t going to have the role of run game coordinator and ultimately decided to step away from coaching with the Eagles.

The Eagles’ offensive line took a dramatic step back in 2025, mostly because of injuries. Lane Johnson missed half the season, and Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens were never or rarely fully healthy and did not have the same impact as in previous seasons. The futures of Johnson and Dickerson could be up in the air, and the Eagles could be forced to replace one or two key parts of the line, or at the very least need to start planning for replacements via the draft or free agency.

Kuper’s hiring marks the fourth new offensive coach in the building, a process that started when the Eagles hired Mannion on Jan. 29. They also hired former Tampa Bay offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard to be the pass game coordinator and hired Green Bay wide receivers coach Ryan Mahaffey as the run game coordinator and tight ends coach.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sean Mannion once played a pivotal role in the Seattle Seahawks beating the Eagles. But it came as neither player nor coach. It was as a quasi-player-coach — at least that’s how Drew Lock saw the future Eagles offensive coordinator.

In December 2023, Lock started at quarterback for the injured Geno Smith when Seattle hosted the Eagles in a Week 15 matchup. The Seahawks, like the Eagles, were slumping. But the playoffs were still within reach and Lock wanted to atone for the previous week’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers when he tossed two interceptions.

Mannion was the backup, just a chinstrap away from playing himself, but he spent most of the week, and especially game day, preparing the starter for his big moment.

“Me and Sean had to get really close that Eagles week — the week I ended up starting,” Lock said to The Inquirer a week before the Seahawks’ Super Bowl win. “Geno was trying to rehab as much as he could to be able to come back the next week. It was really me and Sean in the quarterback room most of the week.

“But the pep talk he gave me at my locker before we went out there, the stuff he’d say to me on the sideline, it didn’t sound like a fellow quarterback. It sounded like someone who was going to lead men one day. It just sounded different. You could feel it.”

Lock played splendidly despite not knowing what defense he might see after Eagles defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s demotion became public just hours before kickoff. Mannion, who was in his ninth and final season as a player, shifted into the role of coach just a few months before he would officially become one with the Green Bay Packers.

“It was how focused he kept me,” Lock said. “He saw and told me the things that I did well after a drive, or maybe the things I could have done better. I think it was more about delivery than anything.”

Lock was solid throughout the closely contested game, but he delivered in the clutch. With under two minutes left, he guided the Seahawks on a 10-play, 92-yard game-winning drive. All the yards came through the air, with Lock targeting cornerback James Bradberry in coverage, capped by a 29-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

The 33-year-old Mannion, who was hired by the Eagles two weeks ago after a prolonged search, has several ties to the Seahawks. He was coached by both offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, who along with Lock, became champions after the Seahawks beat the Patriots, 29-13, on Sunday night.

Last week, ahead of Super Bowl LX, they spoke glowingly about Mannion, despite his relative coaching inexperience. Janocko said he had a photographic memory.

“In the quarterback room, going over third downs, prepping for a third down day on Thursday, being able to give him two, maybe three words of a play call, he could spit out the rest after just looking at it that morning,” Lock said. “I don’t know many guys that can do that. It was just extremely impressive.”

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Milton Williams was autographing Super Bowl LIX merchandise about a week after the Eagles routed the Kansas City Chiefs when general manager Howie Roseman sidled up next to him.

Williams had four pressures, two sacks, and a forced fumble as he and his fellow linemen pounded quarterback Patrick Mahomes a year ago in New Orleans. Roseman had come to congratulate the defensive tackle, but also to intimate that the Eagles would not be offering a contract extension to the free-agent-to-be.

“That was when all the players sign the Super Bowl merch,” Williams said to The Inquirer on Wednesday. “[Roseman’s message] was like, ‘Get the most you can.’ Once I heard that — and, meanwhile, I was talking to my agent about the deal — I thought, ‘They’re probably not going to offer.’” (Through an Eagles spokesman, Roseman confirmed that the exchange occurred.)

He was right. Williams said he was crushed. He said he wanted to stay in Philadelphia.

“We had just won a Super Bowl. Of course I didn’t want to leave,” Williams said. “But I got to do what’s best for me. They had their agenda of what they wanted to accomplish, and I wasn’t part of it. So they let me go.”

Williams ultimately signed a four-year, $104 million contract with the New England Patriots — the largest amount given to any free agent last offseason and the most in franchise history. He said he knew it would have been difficult for Roseman to match, but to him, the silence was deafening.

“I wanted to see, like, what the interest was,” Williams said. “I had been there four years, giving all I can, playing hurt, putting my body on the line. It wasn’t business. I wanted to see what they had, but they probably knew I was out of their price range.

“Still, an offer would have [meant] maybe they do want me to come back. No offer is ‘We good.’”

Roseman had difficult decisions to make last offseason, particularly on the defensive line. The Eagles allowed end Josh Sweat and Williams to depart in free agency, with three first-round D-linemen slated for eventual pay increases.

Tackles Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis have yet to sign second contracts, but extensions could come this offseason. The Eagles also had the younger Moro Ojomo, a 2023 seventh-round pick, waiting in the wings.

But for Williams and his father, Milton, Sr., the lack of an offer was a slight.

“What pissed me off [is] they didn’t even offer him, offered nothing,” the elder Williams told The Inquirer. “They didn’t even entertain it. They just straight up told him — Howie Roseman said, ‘Milton, go get the bag, man, because we’re not going to be able to pay you.’

“That’s what he said to my son. … My son — it was like he wanted to cry. He said, ‘Dad, all I do …’ I said, ‘I understand, son. It’s a business. You’ll get yourself something.’”

The younger Williams got plenty. But he desired more than just to increase his bank account balance, his father said. He wanted to be wanted by the organization that drafted him in 2021. Williams felt he never got the opportunity to show his abilities because he always had higher draft picks or high-priced free agents ahead of him.

“They had their agenda. They drafted them boys in the first round and invested a lot of money in them boys,” Williams said. “I was a third-round pick, and they didn’t invest as much in me. That’s what I tell [my teammates], in the NFL it’s all about money. Money makes everything go. That’s how you see who’s going to play and what percentage of snaps.

“It’s all about money, and I wasn’t making that much.”

Williams is making a lot now. At $26 million per year, he’s behind only the Chiefs’ Chris Jones among NFL defensive tackles. The larger salary meant more playing time, but also more responsibility and more pressure.

The 26-year old has met and exceeded those expectations, according to most observers. He was at the center of the Patriots’ remarkable one-year turnaround — led by new coach Mike Vrabel — from basement-dwellers to the cusp of winning a championship.

Williams is one of only three players on the team to have previously won a title and he would become just the fifth player in NFL history to win consecutive crowns with different teams if New England upsets the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday in Super Bowl LX.

“About three weeks ago, Coach Vrabel asked everybody in the organization, ‘Who here was in this situation last year in the playoffs?’” Milton Williams Sr. said. “And my son was the only one to raise his hand in the entire organization — nobody, coaches, staff — nobody else in the playoffs.

“That was powerful right there. And now they’re in the Super Bowl.”

‘He’s a grinder’

Williams admitted that he initially felt some pressure when he inked his deal, which included $51 million guaranteed. But the Patriots had done their homework. Vrabel said he knew a lot about Williams’ character from pre-draft evaluations the Titans did when he was in Tennessee.

“We did a lot of work on him coming out of the draft … and the type of person that he was, and the family that he’s come from,” Vrabel said Monday. “So we knew the person that we were going to get, and we were confident that he was somebody that we were going to add to our roster.”

But it wasn’t until the Patriots actually got Williams in the building that they realized how hard he worked.

“It was most surprising the more I’ve been around him,” defensive line coach Clint McMillan said. “There’s a lot of talented players, but how he’s wired is the thing that I was most excited about. He’s a grinder. He puts his nose down, and he keeps working. He’s never satisfied.”

Williams wasted little time making his presence felt. He had seven pressures in the season opener, according to NextGen Stats, and 32 total through 10 games with a 13% pressure rate that was among the best at his position.

But he suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 11 and missed the next five games. It was first time he had been sidelined by injury in his career. The Patriots suffered as a result, particularly in defending the run. When Williams was in the lineup, they held offenses to just 3.7 yards per carry. When he was out, they allowed an NFL-worst 5.0-yard average.

“It was a big change because a lot of guys [offensive game-planners] were focused on where I was at,” Patriots defensive tackle and Neumann Goretti product Christian Barmore said of Williams’ absence. “But when he came back, it was an epic time because that man right there, he’s a good player. We already knew he brought a spark to our defense.”

He’s elevated his performance in the postseason and had four pressures and two quarterback hits in the AFC championship game vs. the Broncos. He told The Inquirer that he was randomly tested for drugs after the game.

“We don’t do drugs, man,” Milton Williams Sr. said. “We don’t do drugs right here. We work, man.”

Vrabel has used Williams like a chess piece up front, having him swap sides in the interior and even occasionally jump out to the edge. Roseman highlighted Williams’ versatility when he drafted the Louisiana Tech prospect who lit up the NFL combine almost five years ago.

But the majority of his snaps in Philly came at right defensive tackle because Fletcher Cox and Carter preferred to rush primarily from the left. Williams also wasn’t asked to take on a leadership role with the Eagles. He’s had to learn on the job in New England.

“I was never the guy that you would come ask questions,” Williams said. “We had other vets on our team who had done it before. I’m only 26, but I’m one of vets in the room because of my experience playing — it’s crazy.

“I’m just trying to spread the knowledge like some of the vets in Philly did when I was there.”

‘Make plays on this stage, it’ll change your life’

Williams had some struggles as a rookie, and he and the team faced criticism because he was drafted just one pick after Alim McNeill, a bigger-bodied defensive tackle who became a high-impact rookie with the Detroit Lions. Senior scout Tom Donahoe preferred McNeill, and the Eagles were in position to draft him but traded down from No. 70 to No. 73 in exchange for a sixth-round pick. McNeill went 72nd, and the Eagles took Williams 73rd. Donahoe, who left the team in 2022, was caught by TV cameras begrudgingly shaking Roseman’s hand in the draft room after the pick was made.

Roseman’s projection panned out, and Williams became one of the league’s more explosive interior rushers and a high-motor guy. But he often felt idle.

“He would get frustrated because he was like, ‘Dad, I’m putting in my work,’” Milton Williams Sr. said. “I’ve been at practice before, and I see these guys and they can’t finish a drill and land on their backs or whatnot. And I see that, and he finished the drill and got 15, 20 seconds left still.

“And I said, ‘I understand. But you know what? Whenever you’re on the field, make them call your name. Bottom line.’ That’s our saying right there: ‘If they’re calling your name on the field, that means you’re doing something.’”

But when the Eagles extended their first- and second-round draft picks from 2021 — wide receiver DeVonta Smith and guard Landon Dickerson — after their third seasons, Williams wasn’t next in line. He thought he would be.

“I was waiting. I was in the last year of my deal. I’m like, ‘It’s now or never,’” Williams said. “Every time I step out on the field, if I wanted to be there I was making sure I was making plays. But I was also putting out good tape for a situation like this.

“If they don’t want me to sign [early], I was going to change that, and watch me be a professional and get better every year as a player.”

Williams said he watched the Eagles regress without him this season. Their issues were many, but mostly on the offensive side. Williams said he kept in touch with various players and coaches and that Brandon Graham recently reached out to tell him he was proud of him.

The Patriots have leaned on Williams’ knowledge of Super Bowl week since he had experienced it twice previously. Vrabel put together a roster of underdogs. Williams may be the highest-paid, but he knows how it feels to be overlooked.

“We got a lot of guys who got released because they thought they weren’t good enough or they wanted to go in another direction,” Williams said. “So they got a lot of stuff in the back of their minds to motivate them and push them. ‘OK, you didn’t think I was good enough? I’ll show you.’ You make plays on this stage, it’ll change your life.

“I did it.”

The journey started in Crowley, Texas, about a 20-minute drive south of Fort Worth. At Bicentennial Park, Williams would run hills with his father. He still goes back there to maintain the hunger he first had when he felt disregarded.

“He’s had a chip on his shoulder all his life, from little league on up,” Milton Williams Sr. said. “He’s not the rah-rah type person. He’s just going to put the work in. And now that people are finally seeing what he can do, he’s just working. It ain’t over. They ain’t seen nothing.

“They haven’t seen anything yet.”