Kellen Moore and Saints may raid Eagles coaching staff

Good morning, friends. Wishing a very happy Taco Tuesday to all who celebrate.

Today we’ll check in on the Saints’ attempts to poach additional coaches from the Birds, Mike Trout’s position switch, and Paul George’s vacation.

In the email today:

• 😡 Kellen Moore and Saints may raid Eagles coaching staff

• 😇 Eagles superfan Mike Trout moving to RF

• 🌴 Paul George's All-Star break vacation has Sixers fans seething

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

Saints head coach and former Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore may bring a couple more Eagles with him to New Orleans.

The NFL Network's Ian Rappaport reports that the Saints will interview Eagles quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier for its open offensive coordinator position. Nussmeier, 54, joined the Birds in 2024 after serving as quarterbacks coach for the Cowboys and Chargers in recent years.

The club also plans to interview Eagles defensive passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Christian Parker for its vacant defensive coordinator job, reports The MMQB's Albert Breer. Like Nussmeier, Parker has only been with the Eagles for one season. The 33-year-old served as the Denver Broncos' defensive backs coach from 2021 through 2023.

Assistant coaches on Super Bowl-winning clubs are often candidates for bigger roles with other teams. It's an unfortunate reality for the Eagles, who would surely like to retain as many coaches (and players) from their championship squad as possible.

But if this is a price the Birds pay for a Lombardi trophy, so be it. The Eagles organization will happily make the same deal every year.

Vineland native Mike Trout has been the object of Phillies’ fans affection from the moment he became the best player in baseball.

From 2012-2019, Trout racked up three MVP awards, eight All-Star nods and plenty of other accolades while winning (checks notes) exactly nothing.

Really, the closest Trout has ever come to a title is at the Linc.

Trout is no longer baseball’s best player, not by a long shot. Since 2020, Trout has played in an Embiid-esque 319 out of 810 games. Fan voting (especially Angels fan voting) got him three more All-Star appearances, but he only maybe earned it in 2022.

The primary justification for the massive contract the Angels gave Trout in March 2019 was the production he provided while playing in center field.

At 33 years of age, and with his injury history, Trout made an announcement that casts another pall on the value of his outsized paychecks.

On one hand, sure. Anything Trout and the Angels can do to keep his bat in the lineup makes sense. They’d DH him, but Jorge Soler has that spot locked down.

On the other hand…woof. The Angels are on the hook for $35.45M annually through 2030. When “nightmare” is in the title of the piece analyzing the deal, that’s bad, right?

Also, you know who the real winners are here? The Philadelphia Phillies.

Imagine if the Phillies had bent to fan pressure, traded for Trout and took on his contract. Now imagine Embiid, Trout and Paul George in 2025 all guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars to either play well below their best — or to not play at all.

Sometimes, the best bet is the one you never get to the window to place.

Everyone has had that one co-worker. Maybe you work with this person now. The co-worker who is vastly overpaid, consistently underperforms, and is smug about it.

Somehow, in a season where Joel Embiid has played only 17 of a possible 54 games, it’s not Embiid fans are most upset with during this pause in the NBA season.

Perspective is helpful here. There are a few reasons why George’s All-Star break plans shouldn’t matter to Sixers fans:

• George earned hundreds of millions of dollars in his career before coming to Philadelphia; it’s not like he’s spending the Sixers’ money on this trip.

• At age 34, in his 15th year in the league, George was not about to spend the All-Star break shooting hundreds of jumpers a day and working on his game.

• All the shooting practice in the world won’t matter anyway as long as Embiid remains limited/ineffective/in street clothes.

There are cooler heads who agree with the above.

This is a level-headed, even keel take. It is also fairly decidedly a minority take.

What George doesn’t seem to get — or gets but doesn’t seem to care about — are the optics. Out of sight is out of mind. We searched X and Instagram for All-Star break vacation pics from Embiid and Maxey. We found none. Because they know.

They know that it’s been a long, miserable winter in Sixerland. The Eagles season ended perfectly, but it’s over, and we’re supposed to be preparing for a Sixer playoff run

Instead, the Sixers are almost certainly better off tanking, and George — the big free agent get of the 2024 offseason — has run out of f#cks to give.

As should Sixers fans, really.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On February 18, 1983, Moses Malone helped the NBA hit a milestone.

📊 Poll

Results from Monday:

🔗 Links

• ♀️ Caitlin Clark’s agent thinks WNBA players are underpaid. (Wow, really?)

• 🇺🇸 NBA players are willing to listen to the “U.S.A. vs. the world” All-Star Game idea.

• 💵 The Phillies’ win total over/under is a healthy 91.5.

• 🏒 The United States and Canada will square off for the 4 Nations Face-Off title on Thursday.

📺 Coming Up

No games for the locals until February 20.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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