If Nick Sirianni wants to save his career as the Eagles’ coach, he needs to learn to calm down

[Procus]

https://www.inquirer.com/eagles/nick-sirianni-philadelphia-eagles-dom-disandro-derrick-gunn-20240223.html

If Nick Sirianni wants to save his career as the Eagles’ coach, he needs to learn to calm down

A recent report about Sirianni reaffirmed what everyone can see: The coach needs help controlling himself. It's time for him to grow up.

    by Mike Sielski | Columnist
    Published Feb. 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

So it turns out that the most valuable acquisition the Eagles could make this offseason won’t be a decent linebacker or a young cornerback but a Hefty bag of cannabis gummies for their head coach. Nick Sirianni needs something to calm him down, and the time for brainstorming to solve this problem is getting short. Maybe they could blast Enya or Bon Iver from the Lincoln Financial Field sound system during pregame warmups. Maybe Jalen Hurts can light a lavender candle and have it burning between offensive possessions. Maybe the team should just keep a tranquilizer gun on the sideline in case of an emergency. Break glass if Big Dom gets tossed from another game.

Derrick Gunn, who was bid farewell by NBC Sports Philadelphia in the summer of 2020 yet hasn’t stopped breaking news about the Eagles since, put out a social media post Wednesday that was as explosive as it was unsurprising. Citing sources, Gunn said that the midseason suspension of Dom DiSandro, the Eagles’ chief security officer, had ramifications beyond DiSandro’s absence for the Eagles’ final six games. "Big Dom suspended-controls Sirianni’s emotions on sideline,” Gunn wrote on Twitter/X, "in his absence Nick gets in numerous arguments with players/coaches during games.” [sic]

According to sources: Jalen big contract-pulled in numerous directions on/off field put him under a lot of pressure he didn’t handle well ..
Big Dom suspended-controls Sirianni emotions on sideline ,in his absence Nick gets in numerous arguments with players/coaches during games

— Derrick Gunn (@RealDGunn) February 21, 2024

When DiSandro confronted 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw on Dec. 3, the Eagles apparently lost more than a game and more than the figure who, by never leaving Sirianni’s side, represented a show of force against anyone who would confront the head coach. They were without a key member of their game-day crew, and if it’s too much to say that DiSandro’s absence was a big reason that the Eagles’ season spiraled into oblivion after that 42-19 loss, it’s enough to say that his exile didn’t help — and that Sirianni relied on him more than anyone knew.

That has to be the primary concern for the Eagles here: that Sirianni’s inability to regulate himself during the heat and tension of a game might be having a material effect on the team’s performance. As just one example, everyone saw Sirianni shouting at Haason Reddick and DeVonta Smith during the Eagles’ ugly victory over the Giants on Christmas, and in light of Gunn’s reporting, it’s not so easy anymore to dismiss that incident as just an ordinary player-coach interaction, though Sirianni tried after the game.

Coach Nick Sirianni (center) reacts to a penalty on the Eagles defense during the 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Dec. 18.David Maialetti / Staff Photographer

"I get animated a lot,” he said. "There are things that when mistakes are happening or trying to get the communication going, just a little bit of that. That happens throughout a game. It’s going to be between players and players, coaches and players, coaches and coaches. But when you have the relationships that we have and the connections that we have, we’re able to move on quickly.

"The guys know all we’re trying to do and coaches know all we’re trying to do is get everybody to play their best, and sometimes that’s with a smack on the butt and sometimes that’s with a yell.”

Yelling is fine. Yelling happens. Yelling can be a useful coaching and motivational tool. And if Sirianni was merely barking at his players from time to time, no one would bat an eye. But that’s not what’s happening. He has established a pattern of behavior now, and there’s no sense that there’s any larger strategy or purpose to the way he carries himself during a game, the moments before kickoff, and the moments immediately after. Lots of his players love him because he’s authentic; it’s a genuine strength of his. It’s only a strength, though, up to a point. It’s damaging and destructive when Sirianni allows himself to be totally uninhibited, when those guardrails fall — and DiSandro is an important guardrail — and he crosses the line that separates an understandable reaction from a loss of self-control.

There’s nothing phony about acting like a professional in a professional setting — a setting, remember, that already allows for plenty of displays of emotion that would be inappropriate in another work environment but are run-of-the-mill in the NFL. Sirianni can fist-bump and chest-bump and scream in joy and sometimes scream in anger. All coaches can and do. What he shouldn’t do, what he has done too often, is taunt the Eagles’ opponents and those opponents’ fans, mug for the cameras when things are going well for his team, and lose himself so completely in the distractions and noise that he can’t focus fully on the details that are supposed to matter.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni talks during a press conference after the team's loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round.David Maialetti / Staff Photographer

The problem here isn’t that Sirianni cares. It’s that he cares too much, that he struggles with the pressures and demands of his job. Late in the season, he’d show up to his media availabilities looking like he hadn’t slept in days — gaunt and dragging, stubble on his chin, eyes rimmed red. But working longer and harder doesn’t necessarily mean working better and smarter, and it looks more and more like Sirianni isn’t mature enough yet to know the difference.

He had better learn, and fast, for his own sake. If he doesn’t, if he’s not careful, it’s going to cost him his job. Time to grow up, Nick. Time to grow up.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

So there’s a few things to this. If it’s true then Sirianni should have been fired. The fact he wasn’t suggests this is a load of rubbish.

If Sirianni needs keeping him check by the head of security, who himself got kicked out of a game and suspended for losing his cool, then that’s a real issue. But it just can’t be true. Sirianni got in to arguments with players before Dom was suspended from the sidelines. I don’t think there was a sharp rise in those situations after Dom got suspended? Sirianni likely got to in arguments because things were going badly and tempers were high all round.

The concern here though is that this is becoming an issue. And every time Sirianni now gets heated there’s going to be intense media focus on it. That could become a distraction. So maybe Sirianni needs to go?

[birdman#12]

Everything becomes an issue when you're losing.  Everything.  

Philly always tends to blow things way out of proportion.  If the eagles had gone back to the super bowl, most of this crap is called "emotions of a winner"....."intense competitor" or that "he hates losing".......but they didn't, so everything is a problem.

[Eldereagle1]

Not sure I agree, Birdman. What you say in substance is true: things are magnified when teams are losing. But to lose in the manner the Eagles collapsed has to be attributed to more than lack of talent. It wasn't like the Eagles were even competitive at the end of the season and putting forth an effort one would expect of professionals. I hate to say it, but it's looking more and more like Sirianni either was the problem or lost control of the problem. I'm a little perplexed as to why the Eagles are propping him up with two capable coordinators instead of just cutting bait. I think it could simply be for "looks". They were criticized for letting Andy go. Then, they let Doug go after he won a SuperBowl. It's not a good aesthetic. I think they are gambling on him to pull it together but are more than ready to hand off to Moore or Fangio if Siri can't grow up. It's a take. Bad one, maybe. We will see in '24.

[AmericanEagle77]

Everyone liked and embraced the "Villain" role when we were winning, but once we started taking L's it suddenly became a problem. No one likes us we don't care is rolling in its grave.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

12 hours ago, AmericanEagle77 said:

Everyone liked and embraced the "Villain" role when we were winning, but once we started taking L's it suddenly became a problem. No one likes us we don't care is rolling in its grave.

I think the problem is… Nick being a villain when we are winning is great and fun. We know the rest of the league dislikes us and so having a HC who the league hates is fun too. But when you have a HC like that it can turn so much quicker when the wins dry up.

[time2rock]

16 hours ago, AmericanEagle77 said:

Everyone liked and embraced the "Villain" role when we were winning, but once we started taking L's it suddenly became a problem. No one likes us we don't care is rolling in its grave.

Yup ... the same for Jalen's leadership ... no one questioned it before the 1-6 skid at the end of the season.  In fact most were saying how the players really gravitated toward him.  These pieces are nonsense.  

[weko]

Lurie and Howie made the decision to fire the DC in season and it back fired.  That bought Nick one more year as it is hard to find a good coach that is willing to be a complete patsy.  Nick would do well to study other OCs and learn something.  Rare to have a head coach in any sport that has absolutely no knowledge.  The complete lack of adjustments to the blitz was comically incompetent.  Having our WRs run straight fly patterns near both sidelines, not breaking off a route into the completely empty middle of the field?  You could have paraded a marching band thru the empty middle of the field on blitzes.  Or maybe Julian Lurie's mandatory game plans wouldn't allow any changes?  We used to have a good owner but they lucked out and won a SB by signing old free agents and imposing a bend but don't break D scheme that allowed 500 yards in the SB.  Doug and Nick somehow managed to win that game and then they fired Doug because he wouldn't bow down to the owner hiring all the coaches and his analytics kid compiling the game plans each week.  Thank God we won a SB!  Now we pay the piper.