After regular season collapse, do Eagles still believe in Sirianni?

[time2rock]

After regular season collapse, do Eagles still believe in Sirianni? 

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni still thinks his players have faith in him after horrendous stretch.

By Dave Zangaro • Published January 8, 2024

 

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Do the Eagles still believe in Nick Sirianni?

They say they do.

They’re certainly not playing like it.

"I have a lot of confidence in Coach,” Jalen Hurts said. "He puts his heart into it. He has a will to win. And that’s really all you can ask for.”

No, Jalen. You can ask for more. You better believe owner Jeffrey Lurie will.

Because the Eagles are not a well-coached football team right now. To say they are limping into the playoffs would be an understatement; they’re barely crawling into the postseason, having lost five of their last six games. 

The Eagles began this year with a 10-1 record but then the wheels fell off. They’re now 11-6 on their way to face the Bucs in the wild card round next Monday night. They’re somehow road favorites and might be able to get a win; but that’s far from guaranteed.

On Sunday, the Eagles lost to the Giants 27-10. It was a disaster.

"Yeah, obviously wasn't good enough. Wasn't good,” Sirianni said. "We didn't coach well enough, we didn't play well enough, and there's not really an explanation, we just didn't do the things we needed to do to be successful. And that starts with me.”

Sirianni is right. It starts with him.

Even though a win in Sunday’s game ultimately wouldn’t have mattered for seeding because the Cowboys won to take the NFC East, the Eagles didn’t know that at kickoff. They were playing to win this game and for a while the Commanders were doing their part against the Cowboys.

Heck, the reason Sirianni ended up pulling his starters was because the Eagles got down 24-0 to the lowly Giants.

After Sunday’s loss, Sirianni was asked if he thinks the Eagles’ locker room is still supporting him.

"Yeah, I know I felt in that locker room that we’ve got a lot of belief in that locker room,” Sirianni said. "We know everybody … there are a lot of teams that would want to be in our position of making the playoffs. We're in the playoffs, and we're moving onto Tampa Bay, and everything. 

"Everybody's got to give everything they’ve got this week. Myself, starting with the coaches putting the plan together, and then everybody in that locker room. We need all players, coaches, all staff, all hands-on deck, leaving everything they’ve got in this locker room because everybody's 0-0 going into this week.”

So maybe Sirianni does feel support from his players. He has spent a lot of time building the culture.

But why should his players still have faith in him?

"Yeah. I mean, you can ask them that,” Sirianni shot back. "As far as, obviously, we've lost five of our last six, but that doesn't discredit the rest of the season. You can ask them that question.”

And we did. In several different ways.

Sure, it seems crazy to even entertain questions about the future of a head coach who led the Eagles to a Super Bowl appearance less than a year ago. But the fact that those questions are completely legitimate right now just illustrates how bad things have really gotten. If there’s one thing Lurie hates, it’s to be embarrassed. And the Eagles have been embarrassing the last two weeks.

"I think everybody in the locker room has faith in Nick Sirianni,” longtime center Jason Kelce said. "I think to say it hasn’t been pretty the last month would be an understatement but we’ve had a lot of really, really successful football with Nick. I think he does a lot of really, really good things organizationally.”

There’s no question that Sirianni has had success in Philly. The Eagles have made the playoffs in all three of his seasons at the helm and were overachievers in 2021 and 2022. He got them into the playoffs in 2021 after a very shaky 2-5 start. And last year, Sirianni guided them all the way to Super Bowl LVII in impressive fashion before falling to the Chiefs.

But even when the Eagles began this season with a 10-1 record, there were cracks that have become increasingly visible during this horrid stretch to end the regular season.

The offense is stagnant and unimaginative. And the defense is a complete and utter disaster since the ill-fated decision to switch coordinators mid-stream.

So, again, why do the Eagles have faith in Sirianni?

"I don’t even know, what, we finished 11-6 that’s not a terrible record,” tight end Dallas Goedert said. "Obviously, we started the season off better than we ended it. But we had a long season last year. I just know everybody in this locker room is ready to go to work for the playoffs.”

It was very clear from talking to players that Sirianni’s message to his team was about having a clean slate in the playoffs. They’ll learn from this, he said. Teams would love to be in their position, he said. This is a team of fighters, he said. It’s going to take everybody, he said.

Sirianni has said a lot of things publicly and to his players. We’ll find out soon enough if any of it is still getting through.

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/after-regular-season-collapse-do-eagles-still-believe-in-sirianni/556859/

[UK_EaglesFan89]

Publicly they are not going to say different but I just can't see how these players can still believe in Sirianni? And they sure as hell aren't playing like they do which points to them having quit on him. You don't put in that performance against the Giants if you are playing for your coach. That was a team who have downed tools and given up.