What on Earth was Nick Sirianni thinking in final seconds of Packers game?

The Eagles escaped with a win in Green Bay but Nick Sirianni's decision in the final moments of the game was a bizarre one.

By Reuben Frank • Published November 11, 2025

It was 4th-and-6, ball on the Packers’ 35-yard-line, you’re up three, 33 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

What would you do?

You'd punt the dang football, right?

Right!

Nick Sirianni didn’t do that, and the Eagles did hang on to beat the Packers 10-7 Monday night, but Sirianni set himself up for some heavy-duty second guessing with the events of the final few seconds.

Now, Sirianni has been to two Super Bowls in four years, winning one, and he’s got the 4th-highest winning percentage of any head coach in NFL history. The Eagles are about to make it five playoff berths in his first five seasons. So he’s pretty good at this coaching stuff.

But this was bizarre.

After a timeout at 0:33, the Eagles tried for a kill shot, Jalen Hurts throwing incomplete to the deep left corner of the end zone to DeVonta Smith.

The Eagles have hit these 4th-down bombs before, but in this case the clock and the yardage were more important than running a low-percentage deep ball.

By throwing incomplete, the Eagles not only stopped the clock at 0:27, they gave the ball back to the Packers at their own 36-yard-line down 10-7 with a kicker who’s made a 61-yarder.

After the game, Sirianni spoke about his decision.

"I would have liked to be in a little closer to kick a field goal,” he said. "Again, you play every situation a little bit differently, but it was into the wind on that one. I knew the kick would have to be a little bit lower trajectory of a kick on that particular one.

"I’ve got a lot of faith in our offense. It didn’t work out on this one. We just didn’t get it, but I stand pat on that decision, especially being up three because you go up six, they are still going to need a touchdown. So we would have ended the game if we would have gotten that and I’ve got a lot of faith in our guys to be able to do that.”

OK, nobody thought a field goal made sense. It would have been a 53- or 54-yarder in difficult conditions, and if Jake Elliott missed the Packers get the ball around their own 43.

Sirianni was not directly asked why he didn’t consider a punt.

But if Braden Mann pooches the ball down to, say, the 8-yard-line - and he's very good at those kicks - now the Packers have to go 50 yards in a little over 20 seconds to get in range for a 60-yard field goal instead of 22 yards in a little under 30 seconds to get in range for a 60-yarder.

You could run the ball there, but if you don’t get it – and the Eagles hadn’t been running the ball well – the Packers still get good field position and the clock stops on the change of possession.

As it turned out, Jordan Love’s 18-yard completion to Cedar Creek’s Bo Melton gave McManus an opportunity for a 64-yard field goal, which missed badly.

But it never should have come down to a field goal attempt.

Sirianni said he believes he made the right call.

"Don’t regret that at all, wanted to be able to end the game,” he said. "The play didn’t work this time. Sometimes that happens, but I’ve got a lot of faith in sending those guys back out there in those scenarios.

"We had a very similar one that we are all high-fiving about against Cleveland last year, right? Very similar, very similar, that we went vertical on and A.J. and Jalen made a great play. It didn’t work this time. Kind of similar-ish to the Minnesota game.

"So when they work, we are high-fiving. When they don’t work, you are going to go back and say, ‘Hey, was this the best thing that we should have done in this particular case?’ And we’ll be hyper-critical of ourselves there, but I know how much trust I have in Jalen and I know how much trust I have in … A.J. and the offensive line and everybody that goes into that.”

The Eagles do have a knack for making big plays on fourth down. Hurts 41 yards to A.J. Brown for a touchdown in the first Giants win lst year. Hurts 41 yards to Smith in the second Giants game in 2022. Hurts to Brown for 37 yards against the Vikings Hurts to Smith for 34 yards against the Titans in 2022. But those were all plays in the first half that didn’t give the opposing team an opportunity to get back into the game if they failed.

This was different, and the fact that the Eagles escaped with another win doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do.

"We’ll look at it, but we’ve hit it before,” Sirianni said. "And this time we didn’t hit and the defense did a great job of ending the game without any points.”

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/nick-sirianni-decision-final-seconds-packers/694948/

Who’s going to tell Roob that it was a deep shot to AJ not Smitty? If it was to Smitty it might have been complete…

On a serious note though it was a bad call in that spot. Being aggressive is good but that was just careless and reckless. The offense had been bad most the night. The game was on the line and the defense was playing the great football. So put the defense in a more advantageous position with better field position.