PHILADELPHIA — The door swung open. Nick Sirianni emerged. So did his three kids. The eldest is 8, the youngest 2. They piled behind the podium like they were taking a family photo. This did not protect the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles from facing tough questions about the team under his leadership, the offense under his oversight, the way he’d conducted himself on the sideline during a game that could’ve been managed better.
Sirianni chirped twice during the team’s 20-16 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. First at the opponent. He exchanged words with Browns cornerbacks Denzel Ward and Greg Newsome after Ward broke up a third-down pass that forced the Eagles to punt for the second time in their first two drives. Then at the home crowd. While the Eagles were on the field in victory formation, Sirianni walked behind the bench, put an index finger to his right ear then shouted words that could not be heard from afar.
“No, just excited,” Sirianni said. “Just excited to get the win.”
Were fans yelling things that…
Sirianni cut the reporter off.
“Just excited to get the win,” he said. “It’s hard to win in this league, so we’re excited to get the win. Our fans created a couple of false starts that really helped us win this football game. But just excited to get this win and appreciate The Linc’s support.”
Support was open for interpretation. The 69,879 paid ticket-holders inside Lincoln Financial Field often alternated between states of listlessness and restlessness. They booed the Eagles after every quarter except the final one. They booed a team that remains the only one in the NFL that hasn’t scored in the first quarter. They booed a team that was favored by eight points against the Browns, had an opportunity to lead by two scores at halftime, but instead had a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown that tied the game. A smattering of fans beneath the press box at that time chanted: “Fi-re! Nick! Fi-re! Nick!”
Eagles HC Nick Sirianni appears to have some words towards the crowd as the clocked ticked down in the Philly victory. pic.twitter.com/XILkMvVamD
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 13, 2024
But Sirianni focused on the false starts. He credited the crowd for those two five-yard flags that the Browns inflicted upon themselves after reaching third-and-goal at the 3. The Eagles only held a 20-13 lead at the time, and, with 3:57 left in the game, the Browns, who’d been prepared to go for it on fourth down, had to settle for a 31-yard field goal that set the final score.
The Eagles had done the same thing to themselves in the third quarter. Two false starts. Ten yards lost. A field goal near the red zone instead of a touchdown. Had The Linc forced those, too?
“The crowd noise was critical; it was so loud there,” Sirianni said. He looked down at his kids. “Did you guys think it was loud?”
A local columnist instead answered: “No.”
“No?” Sirianni replied. He turned again to his kids. “Did you think it was loud?” They grinned in their shyness. He drew the microphone closer. “Did you think it was loud?” He pinched his son’s cheeks. Nothing. “Somebody answer. Just say yes.”
To the side, the team’s security chief, Dom DiSandro, answered: “It was loud.”
And so continued the awkwardness. And so continued the dissonance between what Sirianni says and what the public sees. And so continued the behavior of a head coach whose unapologetic antics at the very least drew attention away from an Eagles defense that Sirianni himself said “played their ass off” on Sunday.
Let that not be lost. The Eagles defense demolished a bad Browns offense (last in the NFL with -0.25 EPA per play, per TruMedia). A previously feckless pass rush sacked Deshaun Watson five times (split between seven defenders, including a half-sack by Bryce Huff). The Browns began the game 0-for-7 on third-down situations and finished 3-of-12. They averaged 4.6 yards per play. Second-round rookie Cooper DeJean, who made his first start at nickel, logged a sack, six tackles and defended a pass attempt in the end zone.
“I felt prepared going out there,” DeJean said.
The same can’t be said for an Eagles offense that had two weeks to prepare with a fully healthy roster. Although A.J. Brown returned after being sidelined three games with a hamstring injury, although DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson returned after being sidelined a game with concussions, the Eagles sputtered through another slow start in which Jalen Hurts began 0-for-5 passing.
Their wealth of talent eventually won out. Brown beat his man on a 22-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter, and Smith took a short crosser 45 yards for the go-ahead score in the fourth. Hurts finished the game 16-of-25 passing for 264 yards and struck Brown for a 40-yard dagger of a completion that ensured Philadelphia’s final offensive drive ended the game. Both players acknowledged slow starts and leaving points off the board aren’t part of a sustainable way to win.
“Definitely leaving points out there,” Smith said. “You can complain about winning. Or you can play the way we played and win and kind of feel good about yourself knowing that you can get a whole lot better.”
Perspective, of course, isn’t that binary. The Eagles did win. They are 3-2. Those are indisputable facts. Just as it’s indisputable that the Eagles are worse off if in-game injuries sustained by left tackle Jordan Mailata (hamstring), cornerback Darius Slay (knee) and tight end Dallas Goedert (hamstring) are prolonged. Mailata was carted off the field and seen walking with crutches after the game.
It also can’t be disputed that slow starts are a problem. Since 2007, all NFL teams that don’t score in the first quarter have a 34.1 winning percentage, according to TruMedia. Teams that score at all in the first quarter have a 59.3 win percentage in that span. Yet Sirianni attempted to be dismissive about the Eagles offense’s struggles in the first quarter, and he suggested players in the locker room were fixated on the slow starts “because you all are making a big deal about it.”
“I mean, it’s like, guys, we’re going to figure it out,” Sirianni said. “We’re going to fix it. We’ve known how to score in the past. Like, we get it. You guys have a job to do, and you’re going to fixate on one thing. And you’re going to be like, ‘Oh, they haven’t started fast,’ or, ‘They haven’t turned the ball over.’ Like, we got it. Like, we’re going to do everything we can do to fix it. And I don’t want that to be in their heads. That’s why I’m basically telling you guys, ‘All right, we got it. We’ll figure it out.’”
It’s notable how Sirianni chooses his messaging. All in one response, he first denies the lack of first-quarter points is a concern, blames reporters for “making a big deal about it,” yet closes the response by acknowledging that the lack of first-quarter points is indeed a concern, but admits he’s saying otherwise to diminish its influence over the players. It belies consistency and confounds truth.
It calls into question how much clarity there is within his culture. He’s taken the fall publicly for plays he didn’t really call. He spent the offseason talking about how offensive coordinator Kellen Moore was in control of the offense, but then revealed he’s still calling plays. On Sunday, Sirianni took ownership of a third-and-1 call that went awry, then revealed he’d also called a defensive play that he wouldn’t disclose. Accountability is one of Sirianni’s core values, yet, when The Linc voiced its displeasure by booing the Eagles on Sunday, Sirianni said, “I don’t think that’s productive for anybody.”
Sirianni is in the middle of his fourth season in Philadelphia, long enough to know the power of the spotlight and what happens when he stands in front of it. Long enough to know that at least one camera for a nationally televised broadcast is following his every move on the sideline. Long enough to know that when he brings his family to the podium he’ll be asked about their presence. (He spent three minutes within an emotional tangent explaining why football means so much to his family.) It’s important to point out that these are decisions he’s consciously making.
One of the lessons the 2023 collapse contained was how Sirianni managed his emotions. He’d acknowledged at the time that in “high-pressure areas, they’ve got to see me calm and not tense.” In Sunday’s instances, Sirianni insisted he’d been the Sirianni his players wanted to see. Sirianni said he “got some feedback” from “a couple of players” both during the bye week and during Sunday’s game that contained “a sense of” the following: “We need you back, Nick. We need your energy. We need your focus.”
Such feedback suggests Sirianni’s energy and focus had been absent on the sideline in some way. He’d spent part of the offseason expressing how he wanted the Eagles defense to regain its swagger. He’d seemed like a defensive back himself when jawing with Newsome and Ward. Newsome later said he was cool with Sirianni’s exchange and added that Sirianni came up to him after the final whistle and was complimentary of his game.
Hurts also confirmed he was one of the players who’d held such a conversation with Sirianni about his presence.
“I encourage him to be himself,” the quarterback said of his head coach. “That’s who he is.”
(Top photo of Nick Sirianni: Matt Slocum / AP Photo)
