PHILADELPHIA (AP) — About 19 months after Nick Sirianni led the Eagles to the Super Bowl, almost 10 months since they stood at 10-1 and after an offseason shakeup of offensive and defensive coordinators, the fourth-year head coach is in hot water with his .500 team in Philadelphia.
More like sitting on the hot seat.
The calls for Sirianni’s job have grown louder — loudest on talk radio and social media, naturally — as the Eagles enter a bye week at 2-2 this season and 3-8 overall (including playoffs) since a December loss last season against San Francisco.
The cracks were evident last season in a late-season free fall that put Sirianni’s return in doubt among the restless Eagles fan base. For all the hot takes and swirling speculation about Sirianni’s job status in the wake of Philadelphia’s NFC wild-card playoff loss, it appeared his standing inside the NovaCare Complex was never in doubt. Owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman publicly stood firm in support of Sirianni, even with former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick available — though no other team with a vacancy wanted him, either.
Pressed on any concerns about losing his job, Sirianni told sports talk radio station 94WIP this week he wasn’t worried about his fate.
“I’m just worried about getting the team better,” he said.
With Jalen Hurts as turnover-prone as ever, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson among the starters out with injuries, an early free-agent bust in Bryce Huff and a team that has yet to score in the first quarter, it’s fair to wonder if Sirianni can turn the Eagles into winners.
“I’m going to go up there in front of the team, first and foremost, and say what I screwed up,” Sirianni said this week at NovaCare. “But then, I’m going to tell them what I feel like they screwed up. That’s my job as the head coach. And I’m going to tell the coaches what I think they — the coaches before the players even get there — what I think they screwed up. And it’s not an indictment on anybody. It’s all in the attempts to get better.”
Would dumping Sirianni make the Eagles better?
That’s doubtful.
First of all, Sirianni has playoff appearances in all three seasons, and he seemingly has yet to lose the locker room.
Sirianni has eased into more of a CEO role this season, ceding play-calling to offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and letting veteran coordinator Vic Fangio run the defense. Fangio said the Eagles weren’t “tight enough” in coverage in a 33-16 loss to Tampa Bay. The Eagles trailed 24-0 midway through the second quarter and had been outgained 254-0 over the stretch.
As for the offense? Where was Moore’s faith in running back Saquon Barkley, who had 10 carries overall and only two on the Eagles’ first three possessions? Sure enough, on the first play from scrimmage during the third quarter, Barkley exploded for a 59-yard run.
“(We) want to get the ball to Saquon as much as possible, just like a lot of these guys,” Moore said. “A poor job just finding the rhythm in that game to go three-and-out, three-and-out, and three-and-out, and then putting yourself in a challenging position where you’re going to have to play catch-up ball for the rest of the game, and you still don’t want to lose the run game.”
Consider it lost.
Could Sirianni do more during the week — in drills, in film review — that would fix Hurts’ turnover woes? Probably not. Hurts, who signed a $255 million extension ahead of last season, has a turnover in nine straight games and has seven total this season (four interceptions, three lost fumbles). That’s a ball security issue, one a quick fix at coach wouldn’t solve.
“As far as the turnovers, that will be something that we really dive into on a bye week this week and spend a lot of time on that,” Sirianni said.
Sirianni certainly isn’t to blame for Brown’s hamstring injury that cost him the last three games or concussions suffered by Smith and Johnson. No coaching change could help prevent injuries. And it wasn’t Sirianni — but rather Roseman — who hamstrung the defense with a three-year, $51 million deal for Huff in free agency that has yielded zero sacks and two tackles in four games.
The list goes on, of course. It usually does when a team with Super Bowl aspirations already is chasing Washington in the NFC East.
Yes, the Eagles have been bad, but the first four teams they play coming out of the bye are even worse. Cleveland, the New York Giants, Cincinnati and Jacksonville are a combined 3-12 this season, a sign that perhaps if the Eagles can get healthy, fix the bulk of their issues and pounce on the worst of the NFL, the season can be saved.
“There are certain things that I have a vision of how I see our team playing,” Sirianni said.
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