It wasn’t that long ago when the local sports talk radio stations were flooded with call after call about Nick Sirianni.
About his mistakes. About his ineptitude. About his job security.
And as much as Sirianni tries to insulate himself, he heard some of that criticism and those calls for his job.
There was simply no avoiding it.
“You don’t pay too much attention to anything except your process and just try to stick to that,” Sirianni said on Monday afternoon. “That’s what we talk about all the time. I say that to the players all the time. And if in a scenario like that, I’m not practicing what I preach, then those are just words, not actions. Our culture, our habits are about our actions, not just our words. You just try to live by that.”
After all that criticism from a slow start, the Eagles have turned it around under Sirianni’s leadership. After eight straight wins, the Eagles have a 10-2 record and are breathing down the necks of the Detroit Lions for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Sirianni deserves a ton of credit for this turnaround.
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While the Eagles have a ton of talent on both sides of the football, it’s not like they’re winning in spite of their head coach. Is every decision perfect? No. Will every decision be perfect? Nah.
But the vibes are high right now with the 2024 Eagles. Sirianni sets the temperature and he has his players buying in. After Sunday’s 24-19 win over the Ravens, he had the locker room cheering to get back to work the next day in Philly.
“I just think [Sirianni] has been growing,” quarterback Jalen Hurts said on Sunday. “That’s the biggest thing. Everyone has to be able to evolve as the season goes on and I think he’s been able to evolve in the betterment of the team.”
All of this is not to say that some of the criticism thrown Sirianni’s way early this season was completely unwarranted. He did make some game management blunders, his emotional antics ended up making headlines, and there were serious reasons to question whether or not his relationship with the franchise quarterback was on stable ground.
But if you criticized Sirianni for all those things earlier in the year, it’s time to give him his portion of the credit for the turnaround.
During the bye week, Sirianni and Hurts seemed to find some common ground and the relationship has — at least publicly — been much, much stronger. On Sunday night, Hurts was asked how Sirianni has grown.
“I just think his approach, his patience and his ability to dive in to get the detail of things so he can better prepare for us to do what we do,” Hurts said. “I know he’s very intentional with the time he spends, and he’s had some moments where he wishes he did something else, and we’ve had some moments where we’ve got to help him out as well. And then, we’ve got moments where we’ve got to learn from them all, so it’s all collaborative.”
The numbers, of course, are incredible. The Eagles are now 10-2 and Sirianni is just the eighth coach in NFL history to have a 10-2 record or better in three straight seasons, joining Sean Payton, Bill Belichick, Tony Dungy, Mike Shanahan, Mike Ditka, John Madden and Curly Lambeau.
He’s also just the fourth Eagles coach to have three straight 10+ win teams, joining Andy Reid, Buddy Ryan and Dick Vermeil.
And his .698 winning percentage is fifth-best in NFL history.
The numbers alone probably aren’t enough to convince you and that’s somewhat logical. Because it’s a little difficult to really parse out how much credit Sirianni deserves. After all, he’s a CEO head coach who doesn’t call plays on offense or defense, and while there are other CEO coaches in the NFL, this was not the role Sirianni was hired to have back in 2021.
Maybe Sirianni isn’t one of the best coaches in the league. Maybe there are many others you’d take over him — some scheme genius, perhaps. But for this franchise and its unique setup, Sirianni seems to be the right fit.
The only way to quiet all those critics was to win and that’s all the Eagles have done since their bye — eight straight Ws. They’ve passed test after test after test, over the Commanders, the Rams and the Ravens.
The Eagles are now legitimate Super Bowl contenders after getting to the big game just a couple years ago under Sirianni. A couple months after all those calls for Sirianni’s job, it might be time to think about a contract extension. Sirianni will enter the final year of his five-year contract in 2025.
Of course, this past offseason, the Eagles clearly thought about moving on from Sirianni following the epic collapse of 2023. When they didn’t, the organization opened itself up to fans seeing the 2024 season through a different lens. When the Eagles got off to a slow start, it was only natural to wonder about Sirianni’s job security, especially after some of the pitfalls we saw during the first month of the season.
But it doesn’t appear that these Eagles are ripe for a collapse like the 2023 version.
“Last year is over. We don’t care about last year,” Sirianni said on Sunday. “We learned what we needed to learn from last year and what we needed to do off of that. This year, it’s a different group of guys. This is a different team that’s gelling and meshing on all cylinders right now. With that being said, you are only as good as your last game. We’ve got a big game coming up this weekend.”
The Eagles host the Panthers on Sunday at the Linc as they go for their ninth straight win. Based on what we’ve seen recently, Sirianni will have them ready to play.
