Sean McDermott and the Carolina Panthers' sixth ranked defense will host Bruce Arians and the Arizona Cardinal top ranked offense this weekend in the NFC title game, with the winner advancing to the Superbowl. If the Panthers are eliminated this weekend, or whenever their season comes to an end, McDermott will not be leaving to take the Eagles' head-coaching job like some had hoped.
Instead, McDermott's former colleague, Doug Pederson, was named the next coach, without McDermott even receiving an interview.
According to Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News, the team did contact McDermott in their search for a new head-coach, but not because they wanted to schedule an interview.
Smolenski said Roseman did at least call McDermott, 41, now in his 17th season as an NFL assistant and his seventh as a coordinator. Neither Smolenski nor McDermott elaborated upon the purpose of the call, but it appears it was a cursory nod; thanks, but no thanks. Then they hired Doug Pederson, 47, who has seven years of experience, three as a coordinator.
It's worth noting that all six head-coaches hired this off-season have offensive backgrounds, and the Eagles didn't interview a single defensive candidate. So that probably didn't work in McDermott's favor, but the same thing could be said for Cincinnati Bengals' defensive coordinator Paul Guenther, who also seemed like an attractive candidate but wasn't interviewed.
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Whether prior relations with Howie Roseman factored into him not getting an interview are unknown. What is known is that considering Pederson was an offensive coordinator behind an offensive-minded head coach, McDermott probably wasn't ruled out because he was the defensive coordinator behind Ron Rivera, a defensive-minded head coach.
