Duce Staley: It was awesome to be head coach for 10 days

[Swoop]

Getty Images

There aren’t many opportunities for NFL assistant coaches to get a taste of a head coaching job without their boss being fired, but Eagles assistant head coach and running backs coach Duce Staley got one this summer.

Head coach Doug Pederson tested positive for COVID-19 and had to be quarantined away from the team for more than a week. Staley led the team while Pederson was going through that process and Staley told reporters on Wednesday that trying out the top job was a great experience.

“First of all, it was awesome just being able to be in that role, [for] the organization [to] look at me and trust me to be in that role to lead the team,” Staley said. “So that was the awesome part of it. And I just took it one day at a time. Continuing to deliver Doug’s message. Continue to meet with the team. Continue to talk with Doug virtually to deliver his message. I took a lot from it. I tell you, it was exciting for me because of course, playing here in this great city and coming back coaching and being able to be the head coach for those 10 days was just awesome. I can’t say enough about it. . . . I learned the three L’s, and the three L’s are listen, learn and lead. So that’s what I got from that awesome experience. And just being able to step in – and one of the things we talk about as coaches, and you guys have seen it with players, of course, over the last couple years when one of our star players go down, it’s the next-man-up mentality as players.”

Should Staley land on interview lists for head coaching jobs in the future, his brief run at the top of the Eagles hierarchy will give him some insight about how he’d pitch himself to potential employers. A strong year for the Eagles would likely help Staley’s chances of getting those interviews.