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RADIO WARS (sort of): Jason Kelce on WIP Disputes Bill Colarulo Report About Jeff Stoutland’s Departure
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Not sure if this counts as RADIO WARS, but Bill Colarulo reported on Wednesday, “per sources,” the following:
“What I am being told by sources with the Philadelphia Eagles, is that as great as Jeff Stoutland had been in year’s past, that last year wasn’t his best season. And that wasn’t only coming from the coaching staff that felt that way about Jeff Stoutland. It was also coming from his players along that offensive line, and that it wasn’t, in fact, Nick Sirianni that wanted to remove the run game coordinator role from Jeff Stoutland. It was his own players who felt like it was time for a change in scheme and voice. Now this doesn’t absolve what’s going on this year, but for everybody to be pointing the finger at Nick Sirianni and saying he’s the reason Jeff Stoutland left, I’m being told otherwise.”
Jason Kelce responded Thursday morning on WIP:
“…Usually that unnamed source has some type of incentive or reason that they’re putting this out to a media member. And it’s usually to cover their own behind. And listen, I stay out of a lot of this stuff. But there was an unnamed source (Wednesday) that said the players wanted Jeff Stoutland gone. When Jeff Stoutland announced he wasn’t coming back, Jordan Mailata and his wife went to have dinner at his home and honor that man. When Lane Johnson retired, he only met with one coach. He met with Jeff Stoutland. I take great offense to somebody alluding to players not fighting really hard for Jeff. And I don’t know the way the last season went because I wasn’t there. I know it wasn’t great. But that one very much upset me because the reason to move on from Jeff Stoutland had nothing to do with the players. It had to do with the building, wanting to go in a different direction. And that’s fine. But don’t give me this crap like, trying to defer direction on the decisions you guys wanted to make. That’s all I’ll say.”
When something like this happens people always try to pick up bread crumbs and figure out who the unnamed sources are. There are a bunch of people out there saying Bill has no sources or doesn’t know what he’s talking about or that the Eagles leaked it to him to try to cover their own asses. Doesn’t matter, pointless exercise. Everyone should recall Joe Santoliquito’s Carson Wentz story of years ago, and how much he got killed for that before he was more or less vindicated.
Anyway –
Kelce says he wasn’t there during Stoutland’s final season. It’s actually the last two seasons because Jason retired at the end of the 2023 year and Stout coached the Super Bowl team and the 2025 team after that. You would assume he’s very plugged in and keeps in touch with the offensive line holdovers, former teammates like Mailata and Johnson and Dickerson/Jurgens etc. But it’s certainly plausible that he doesn’t know the extent of how the offensive players were feeling in 2025 specifically, during a poor offensive campaign.
Normally when you litigate these types of things, the truth lands somewhere in the middle. The players seemed genuinely enthusiastic about playing a different run scheme this season, talking in the preseason about how it was lineman-friendly. There were opportunities to get under center more and play a more simple game with some wide-zone blocking and whatnot. Thsoe quotes are on record.
Maybe Stoutland was resistant to scheme change, maybe not, but certainly you’d think guys might be curious about trying something different.
It doesn’t necessarily mean they soured on Stoutland personally. It’s entirely plausible that the scheme was wearing on them but they still looked at Stoutland like a father figure and a mentor. To understand that, we turn to the philosophy that “more than one thing can be true.”
“I’m not saying Stoutland is perfect because I know it had gotten bad internally. Some of the offensive linemen were griping a little bit about him. Maybe at some point, after 13 years together, that’s gonna happen. But I just don’t see how you let someone like that decide, ‘hey I’m just gonna retire rather than keep coaching.'”
Maybe you don’t believe Colarulo, but do you believe McLane?
Who do you believe? The truth is out there!
(Apparently Colarulo is gonna RESPOND to the RESPONSE today, so we’ll keep an eye on that)
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com