After Super Bowl win, Nick Sirianni is now grateful for collapse of 2023

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After Super Bowl win, Nick Sirianni is now grateful for collapse of 2023

Nick Sirianni on Monday morning was asked why the 2024 Eagles were so close. He pointed at adversity.

By Dave Zangaro • Published February 10, 2025

 

NEW ORLEANS — It was only fitting that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni showed up to his day-after-the-Super Bowl press conference wearing an A.J. Brown high school jersey early Monday morning.

If there’s one thing Sirianni cares about, it’s connecting.

A few minutes after Sirianni posed for a photo with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the Lombardi Trophy, the head coach answered a question I had been pondering for a while. On little-to-no sleep, Sirianni delivered an answer worth remembering.

What made the 2024 Eagles so close? 

"It’s the journey,” Sirianni said. "You don’t know how close a team’s going to be until you go through the journey together. It’s hard to say this because we won 16 out of our last 17 games but even in the midst of that, adversity has a tendency to bring you together.

"I think I look back at last year and how last year ended and I’m grateful. As crazy as this sounds, I’m grateful for how last year ended because it shaped us to who we are today and where we’re standing today. And the adversity at the beginning of the year and, shoot, the adversity through the season, through the injuries, through ups and downs, everything.

"I think that when you embrace adversity, it does something to you. It does something to you personally, each and every individual on that football team adversity does something to and it does something to you as a football as well.”

The Eagles faced a ton of adversity in 2023, when they collapsed, losing 6 of their last 7 games, including a blowout wild-card round exit.

Heck, Sirianni was almost fired after the season.

And it wasn’t like the Eagles got off to an incredible start in 2024. They had a 2-2 record and many were wondering if the head coach would survive the season. He didn’t just survive. He thrived.

And he thinks that adversity of going through those things is what made this team grow close. But that’s not the only reason.

"They work their butts off to connect,” Sirianni said. "They work their butts off, in a world where it’s all about your phone, they put their phones down and did stuff together. That was the first and foremost key. You can’t substitute the time that it takes to connect. The time that they had with dinners together, in the game room, in between meetings and all that different stuff. 

"They were selfless. Just look at Jalen (Hurts) and A.J. (Brown) and DeVonta (Smith) and everybody. The group rush on defense, not caring who gets the credit and just wanting to win. There were so many things.”

The Eagles talked about how close they were for most of the season. How much they hung out together. How much they cared for one another. And that was evident in the winning locker room in the Superdome. The Eagles had a wild celebration.

Cigar smoke filled the locker room as players sprayed beer and champagne, danced together and passed around the Lombardi Trophy from player to player to coach to staffer.

For a brief few minutes, safety Reed Blankenship lowered his protective ski goggles and explained what was so special about the 2024 Eagles.

"I’ve never been a part of a team this close,” Blankenship said. "Through the ups and downs, we didn’t care about what anybody said. We had each other’s backs. We created a family, a brotherhood that will last forever.”

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/super-bowl-nick-sirianni-connection-2023-collapse-lombardi-trophy/648725/