It looks like Chip Kelly has found his man to run his defense. According to CSN's Geoff Mosher, the Eagles will hire Billy Davis as defensive coordinator. He'll come over with former colleague Pat Shurmur after the pair coached together the past two seasons with the Cleveland Browns.
His track record as a defensive coordinator isn't exactly the resume of Jim Johnson. But it's not that of Todd Bowles either.
This move will likely go hand-in-hand with the Eagles making the much rumored switch to a 3-4 defense.
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Jeff McLane dug up some of Davis' defense's stats:
Davis' defenses in San Francisco finished 32d in yards and 30th in
points in 2005 and 26th and 24th in 2006. In Arizona, his defenses were
ranked 14th and 31st in yards and 11th and tied for 26th in points.
Davis was most recently the linebackers coach in Cleveland. Prior to that he was DC in Arizizona and Cleveland.
One of the more interesting questions I've seen discussed on Twitter is why wait so long to grab a guy from the Cleveland Browns? Did they want to try and test the waters with a 49ers/Ravens assistant and that didn't work out?
This is recommended reading to get to know Davis.