Roob's Observations: Understanding what really makes Nick Sirianni a great coach

The 2025 NFL season is here.

By Reuben Frank • Published September 4, 2025

What really makes Nick Sirianni a great NFL head coach? A look back 25 years at the last Eagles-Cowboys season opener. And how the interior defensive line snaps might be distributed.

It's opening day. Nothing else matters.

Here’s a bonus game-day set of Roob’s 10 Random Eagles Observations to give you something to read while waiting for 8:20 p.m. to finally get here.

1. Think about the biggest challenges Nick Sirianni has faced, and then think about how he’s handled them. When the world was mocking him after his introductory press conference, he knew exactly what to say to his players later in the day to win them over. After the 2-5 start that year, he knew exactly what to communicate to the team to keep them believing. After the disastrous collapse at the end of 2023, he knew exactly what his team needed to move past it. And even after the 2-2 start last year and another terrible loss in Tampa, he got the thing back on the rails, and we all saw what happened the rest of the season. Getting a football team to stay focused and determined and hungry after winning a Super Bowl is a different sort of challenge, but it’s another huge one. And we’ll see how it goes, but the way he got these players to move on was impressive. We probably did 120 player interviews during training camp, and I never heard one person who was here last year mention the Super Bowl. And when they were asked about it, without exception they wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t even think about it. "Next question?” This is Sirianni’s strength as a coach, creating a vision for the franchise and finding ways to get 53 guys to believe in that vision and work as hard as they’ve ever worked to carry it out. The Eagles have won 70 percent of their games since he became head coach and gone to the Super Bowl in half his seasons. It takes a lot more than great players to make a great team, and Sirianni gets that as well as anybody I’ve ever been around. It helps. But it doesn’t guarantee anything. Since 2021, Eagles players have had 27 Pro Bowl seasons and Cowboys players have had 30. Yet during that same span, the Eagles have won six playoff games, reached two Super Bowls and won one, and the Cowboys have won one wild-card game over a team with a losing record. So next time someone asks you what Sirianni does – "He doesn’t even call plays” – tell them he does something that’s even more important. He spends 365 days a year figuring out ways to win football games, and he does it better than just about anybody else.

2. It’s been 25 years since the last Cowboys-Eagles game on opening day, the famed Pickle Juice game at Texas Stadium. It was 109 degrees at kickoff, still the hottest game in NFL history. It was Hugh Douglas who got up in the locker room before the game and gave an explosive speech about ignoring the heat and not using it as an excuse: "I don’t want to hear one person complaining about the heat! I don’t want to hear one person talking about the heat! I don’t want to hear one person crying about the heat! It’s the bleeping Cowboys and I don’t give a bleep how hot it is! We’re going to go out and kick their bleeping butts!” Three hours, one brilliant onside kick and 201 Duce Staley rushing yards later, it was Eagles 41, Cowboys 14, to this day the Cowboys’ worst opening-day loss at home.

3. The Cowboys have lost 21 games by 27 or more points since 1989. Ten of the 21 have been against the Eagles.

4. It’s interesting how the way we look at key guys on the Eagles’ defense is defined by what they did in the postseason. Nolan Smith had 6 ½ sacks during the regular season but 4.0 in the playoffs. Jalyx Hunt had 1 ½ sacks and three quarterback hits all year and 1 ½ sacks and three QB hits in the postseason. Neither Quinyon Mitchell or Cooper DeJean had an interception during the regular season but they picked up three in the playoffs, including one of the biggest in franchise history. Jordan Davis had one sack and one QB hit during the regular season but contributed two sacks and two QB hits in the postseason. Moro Ojomo didn’t have a sack or tackle for loss in the regular season but had a sack and two TfL in the playoffs. It says a lot about players when they’re able to raise their level in the postseason, and all those guys did exactly that, producing when the lights shined the brightest. Does it mean they’ll pick up right where they left off in February? Actually, I believe it will. I think what we saw from Smith, Hunt, Mitchell, DeJean and Davis in the postseason is who they really are as players. Everything came together for all those guys – figuring out the defense, staying healthy, understanding their roles – and they all had huge roles in the Super Bowl run. And that was all in Year 1 under a new coach. And Year 1 in the NFL for Mitchell, DeJean and Hunt and Year 2 for Smith and Ojomo. I expect all those guys to build on what they did in the postseason and play at that level this entire season. It’s going to be fun to watch.

5. One astonishing byproduct of Howie Roseman shedding the defense of high-paid veterans and building a unit with mostly young players on their rookie deals or budget one-year fill-ins is that the Eagles have the 2nd-lowest overall defensive payroll in the entire NFL. According to Spotrac, the Eagles are paying all their defensive players combined $68,347,598 (based on combined average per year). Only the Rams ($53,716,237) have a lower defensive payroll. The Eagles rank 30th in edge payroll, 28th in interior defensive line, 9th in linebacker pay (thanks to Zack Baun), 29th in cornerback salary and 29th in safety pay. The Eagles’ eight highest-paid players are on offense (Jalen Hurts, Lane Johnson, A.J. Brown, Jordan Mailata, Dallas Goedert, DeVonta Smith, Saquon Barkley, Landon Dickerson). This is going to be one of the best defenses in the NFL and one of the cheapest.

6A. Going into the opener, A.J. Brown has caught a pass in 47 straight games and DeVonta Smith has a catch in 45 straight games. This is only the second time in Eagles history two receivers have had streaks over 40 straight games with a catch at the same time. Fred Barnett had a streak of 71 straight games with a catch ending when he got hurt in a game against the Giants on Oct. 15, 1995, and Calvin Williams had a streak of 58 straight games that ended on the final day of the 1995 season, Christmas Eve, in Chicago (his last game as an Eagle). Only 10 Eagles have caught a pass in 50 straight games, most recently Dallas Goedert, who had a 51-game streak from 2019 through 2023, and before that Zach Ertz, who had a 95-game streak from 2014 through 2021. The last Eagles WR with a streak longer than Brown and Smith is DeSean Jackson, who caught a pass in 75 straight over his first two stints here, from 2008 through 2019. Harold Carmichael’s 127-game streak from 1972 througb 1980 is the longest in Eagles history. Ertz’s 140-game streak over the last 11 seasons with the Eagles, Cards and Washington is the 7th-longest current streak. DeAndre Hopkins, now with the Ravens, has caught a pass in 178 straight games, the longest current streak. The longest streak ever is Jerry Rice’s 274 games from 1985 through 2004.

6B. Jackson caught a pass in 89 straight games with the Eagles and Washington from 2008 through 2014 and averaged 18.1 yards per catch during that stretch. Only one player has had a longer streak while averaging 18 yards per reception. Mel Gray of the St Louis Cardinals caught a pass in 121 straight games from 1973 through 1982, averaging 18.5 yards per catch.

7. Curious to see how Vic Fangio and Clint Hurtt deploy their interior defensive linemen. Jalen Carter is going to play just about every snap – his 81 percent playing time was 2nd-most last year among interior linemen, behind Zach Allen. And he was over 90 percent eight times from Week 8 on. So that 81 percent could well go up. Carter can handle it physically, and, heck, why would you want to take him off the field anyway? Jordan Davis played only 37 percent of the snaps last year, but with his conditioning I can see that going up significantly, maybe into the mid- or even high-50s. Moro Ojomo was close to 40 percent late last year and into the postseason, and that number isn’t going down. Ojomo could line up outside, also. And I really believe rookie Ty Robinson is going to have a small part in the rotation as well. Let’s say the Eagles play 60 defensive snaps per game (they were at 58 last year and the league average was 62). That’s roughly 120 interior d-line snaps. Carter will be at least 50 per game, Davis in the mid-30s and Ojomo around 30. That leaves a handful for Robinson, maybe a half dozen per game. Either Byron Young or Gabe Hall will also dress but I would expect them to play only on special teams if everyone else is healthy. This is one heck of an interior d-line rotation we’re going to see starting Thursday night. Best of all, they’re all 24 or 25. They’re just going to keep getting better.

8. JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK: In 18 games since Week 2 of last year and including both regular season and postseason games, Jalen Hurts has thrown 21 touchdown passes and four interceptions and completed 70.1 percent of his passes. He’s the only quarterback in NFL history with 20 or more TDs, four or fewer INTs and 70 percent accuracy in any 18-game span. Aaron Rodgers (39, 3, 69.7 percent) and Russell Wilson (40, 4, 69.1 percent) came close.

9A. Adoree Jackson was talking on Monday about how he enjoyed how much running the Eagles do at training camp and said it brought him back to his track days in high school and college. Jackson was an exceptional track athlete going back to his days at trak powerhouse Serra High in Gardena, Calif. He was the No. 2 prep long jumper in the U.S. in 2014 with a wind-legal 25-5 ¼ from a meet in Chandler, Ariz., and his school actually flew to Philly to compete at the Penn Relays in the 4-by-1 and 4-by-2 his junior and senior years. At USC he ran 10.38 and 21.08 and at 2015 NCAAs anchored USC’s 4-by-100 team, which ran 38.75 and placed 4th. He also medaled twice in the long jump at NCAAs, taking 5th in both 2015 and 2016 with 25-11 ½ and 25-1 ¾. Jackson’s last track meet was the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., where he placed 10th in the long jump.

9B. Jackson’s 10.38 PR is 5th-fastest all-time by an Eagle behind Devon Allen (10.20), Herschel Walker (10.23), Kary Vincent Jr. (10.36) and Dietrich Jells (10.37). Mark Duper (10.21), Raheem Mostert (10.28) and Titus Dixon (10.35) ran faster but never played in a regular-season game for the Eagles. (Jackson hasn’t yet either but will Thursday!).

9C. Jackson’s 25-11 ¼ long jump PR from NCAAs in Eugene in 2015 is 2nd-best all-time by an Eagle behind James Lofton’s 27-0 in Westwood in 1978. Lofton finished his Hall of Fame career playing nine games for the Eagles in 1993. Marquise Goodwin 27-8 ½ is No. 20 in U.S. history, but he never got into a game with the Eagles. Goodwin finished seventh at the 2016 Trials, so two of the top 10 placers wound up as Eagles.

10. Jalen Hurts has 23 more one-yard touchdown runs than anybody else in Eagles history. Hurts has 38 career one-yard TD runs in his first five seasons. Second-most is Ricky Watters (15), followed by Randall Cunningham and LeSean McCoy (14) and Wilbert Montgomery and Steve Van Buren (13). Overall, Hurts has the 10th-most one-yard runs in NFL history and more than 19 of 25 Hall of Fame running backs. John Riggins (59), Marcus Allen (57), Emmitt Smith (54) and Jerome Bettis (48) have the most one-yard TD runs in history.

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/nick-sirianni-top-nfl-head-coach-cowboys-vs-eagles-jalen-hurts/682232/