Very bad news:Nick Sirianni household is on fire his wife just…….
Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni says he didn’t have to “sell” front office on his return
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Updated on: January 24, 2024 / 6:16 PM EST / AP
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Nick Sirianni had to explain Wednesday how the Eagles would move on this offseason — specifically by finding new offensive and defensive coordinators — after a 1-6 finish that seemed likely to lead to organizational upheaval.
What Sirianni didn’t have worry about? Owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman moving on from the third-year coach.
The 42-year-old Sirianni will return for a fourth season — just as he expected. For all the hot takes and swirling speculation about Sirianni’s job status in the wake of Philadelphia’s NFC wild-card playoff loss, it appeared his standing inside the NovaCare Complex was never in doubt.
“Did I have to sell my vision? No, because it was business as usual,” Sirianni said.
But somebody had to pay for the collapse of a team that reached the Super Bowl last season and started this one 10-1 before a seven-week meltdown. Sirianni said it was his decision to fire offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and defensive coordinator Sean Desai. Sirianni repeatedly called the offense “stale” and simply said he wanted to grow the defense.
Sirianni and Roseman were both light on specifics about preferred candidates and a timetable for hiring new coaches.
Even as news broke during Sirianni and Roseman’s news conference that Vic Fangio was out as the defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins, they refused to say if the former team consultant during last season’s postseason run was a top candidate.
“We’ve got a lot of good targets that we’re working through,” Sirianni said. “There’s a lot of guys that have done really well in the interview process. We look forward to continuing that process and we’ll see what happens.”
Johnson joined the Eagles as quarterbacks coach in 2021 and was promoted to offensive coordinator after Shane Steichen left to take the head job in Indianapolis. He has interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Atlanta Falcons and Tennessee Titans this month.
Under Johnson’s guidance as an assistant, Jalen Hurts was a finalist for MVP and Offensive Player of the Year in 2022. Hurts regressed this season with Johnson calling the plays.
He threw a career-high 15 interceptions and his passer rating dropped to 89.1 from 101.5 last season.
Desai lost his play-calling duties to assistant coach Matt Patricia in December.
“Matt was in a tough situation. You can’t completely change the defense,” Sirianni said. “He was trying to make some things happen with, quite frankly, things that weren’t his defense. I know I put Matt in a tough spot. I know I put Sean in a tough spot, obviously. But at the time that I did that, I did it because I thought it was the best decision for the football team.”
Sirianni will call the shots on the new hires.
“I trust him with the coaching staff, that’s his responsibility,” Roseman said.
Roseman sounded like a GM who was ready to work with Sirianni for years to come.
“I’ve seen what he has done winning games,” Roseman said. “He’s put us in a position where we’re competing for a world championship. Putting us in position where every year we’re in the playoff race. Those things are hard to find.”
That was also good enough for Lurie. The Eagles won their lone Super Bowl and lost two more since he bought the team in 1994.
“It was business as usual with how we go about the end-of-the-year meeting,” Sirianni said. “It was just normal. It wasn’t anything different than it’s been the last three years.
“In my mind, you better believe I’m thinking, how do I re-prove myself. I was a young coach that Mr. Lurie and Howie and this organization trusted to give the job to. I had to prove myself that this guy can lead the organization like they asked me to. I had to prove myself from then.”
Sirianni has three playoff trips in three seasons, a Super Bowl appearance and wins in 67% of his regular-season games. Eagles veterans Fletcher Cox and Jason Kelce — who plans to retire — were among Sirianni’s staunchest defenders.
“I think the important thing for us to look at is, before the stretch, which was a difficult stretch, not diminishing the 1-6 stretch at the end, we were 26-5 over the last 31 games,” Roseman said. “That is hard to do in the National Football League. It is hard to find a head coach in this league who has that record of success.”
The Eagles were flying high after an overtime win against Buffalo on Nov. 26 gave them a 10-1 start for the second straight season. At that point, they had won 27 of the previous 29 regular-season games started by Hurts.
Everything unraveled after they were blown out at home by the San Francisco 49ers in the following game. Then, they got pounded at Dallas. A last-minute loss to Drew Lock and the Seahawks came next. After escaping with a win over the Giants on Christmas Day, they suffered consecutive losses to the lowly Cardinals and Giants.
That cost the Eagles the NFC East title and dropped them to the No. 5 seed, and they were soundly beaten at NFC South champion Tampa Bay in the playoffs.
“Of course there’s things that I’ll be adjusting,” Sirianni said. “You don’t just take a six-week stretch and say, ‘Boom, I’m scratching this entire philosophy.’ You look at it as a whole.”
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In: Pennsylvania Football NFL Philadelphia Eagles
First published on January 24, 2024 / 10:39 AM EST
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Eagles exposing themselves as frauds leaves hard Nick Sirianni decision
Published Jan. 16, 2024, 12:19 a.m. ET
They revealed themselves for all to see as Phrauds, the Philadelphia Phrauds.
The Eagles, wild-card losers to the Bucs, could not stop the avalanche of dysfunction and disarray that sabotaged their Super Bowl dreams, and all bets are off on whether Nick Sirianni will survive this.
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Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes can add to rivalry with latest showdown
Sirianni has reached the playoffs in each of his three seasons, but owner Jeffrey Lurie has every right to ask the hard questions as to whether there is a collective vision shared by his emotional head coach going forward with the winds of change howling and heads likely to roll.
If Lurie identifies a better option, and they won’t be hard to find, no one should begrudge him for taking it. Not after this.
Bill Belichick interviewed on Monday with Falcons owner Arthur Blank, and if there is any chance of luring the GOAT with cheesesteaks, Lurie just might feel an urgency to keep him away from Jerry Jones, right?
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Asked about his job, Sirianni said: “I’m not worried about me. My heart feels for these guys.”
Nick Sirianni’s job with the Eagles could be in jeopardy after their late-season collapse. Getty Images
So much can change in the NFL from one season to the next, and after what we just witnessed in these playoffs from the Mike McCarthy Cowboys and the Sirianni Eagles, the gargantuan gap that the 2023 Giants failed to close on their division rivals suddenly doesn’t look as hopelessly gargantuan.
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Much work to do by Brian Daboll to be sure, starting with filling the Wink Martindale defensive coordinator vacancy and resolving the future of his quarterback position and Saquon Barkley, but the 2023 Eagles were no longer feared in the art of trench warfare on both sides of the ball.
They will never forget the Phold of 1964 when the Gene Mauch Phillies choked away a 6 ¹/₂-game lead with 12 to play and lost the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Eagles and Nick Sirianni lost six of their last seven games to close the 2023 season. USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
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It stands as the most colossal collapse in Philadelphia sports history.
But these 2023 Eagles will not be remembered fondly in and around The City of Brotherly Unloved. Nor should they.
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Because they Pholded down the stretch too: An offense that had lost its identity. A defense that too often looked soft.
Sirianni, among other things, was on the griddle for the panic move of taking the play-calling away from DC Sean Desai and handing it to Matt Patricia with nothing to show for a defense that could not stop the run or rush the passer the way it did a year ago.
He lost both offensive (Shane Steichen, Colts) and defensive coordinators (Jonathan Gannon, Cardinals) to head coaching jobs and suffered for it.
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He needed a compromised Jalen Hurts to save the season … and perhaps his job.
Except Hurts was being asked to ignore the pain of a dislocated middle finger on his throwing hand the absence of No. 1 receiver A.J. Brown (knee) and the loss of Julio Jones (concussion) in the second quarter.
He was being asked to find a way to recapture his 2022 magic in the face of a merciless Todd Bowles blitz and somehow will his staggering team to Detroit to face the Lions on Sunday in the divisional round.
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Jalen Hurts didn’t have A.J. Brown entering the game and lost Julio Jones in the second quarter. USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
The Bucs stop there instead.
Hurts were being asked to overcome a reborn swaggerlicious Baker Mayfield scoffing at tender ribs and a tender ankle.
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He was being asked to overcome a game plan that should not have neglected the run.
D’Andre Swift and the Eagles’ offense managed just nine points against the Buccaneers on Monday. AP
It was 16-3 for the Bucs late in the second quarter when Hurts delivered a 55-yard bomb to DeVonta Smith that set up his 5-yard TD pass to Dallas Goedert that made it 16-9. But not 16-11 because — surprise! — the Bucs stuffed the Eagles’ vaunted Tush Push.
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It was late in the third quarter when Hurts held the ball too long in the end zone and surrendered an intentional grounding safety that made it Bucs 18, Eagles 9.
“We have to be better,” Hurts said, “and it starts with me.”
Moments later it was Bucs 25, Eagles 9 when James Bradberry missed a tackle on Trey Palmer on what turned out to be a 56-yard Mayfield TD pass.
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When Lurie fired Doug Pederson three seasons after winning Super Bowl LII, he said: “My first allegiance is, ‘What will be best for the Philadelphia Eagles and our fans for the next three, four, five years?’ It’s not based on ‘Does someone deserve to hold their job or deserve to get fired?’ That’s a different bar.
“It’s not about, ‘Did Doug deserve to be let go?’ No, he did not deserve to be let go. That’s not where I’m coming from, and that’s not the bar in the evaluation process.”
Sirianni will be the one most interested to know what the bar will be now.
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These were the defending NFC champions, led by a quarterback who went eyeball-to-eyeball with Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LVII in a stirring 38-35 loss to the Chiefs.
This was the team that had started the Super Bowl hangover season 10-1 … and finished as the first team to start 10-1 and finish with 11 or fewer wins since the 1986 Jets.
The Eagles started 10-1, but a disappointing finish to the season could force another coaching change. AP
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“We were in a big slide, and anytime that’s the case, I always look at myself first, and I didn’t do a good enough job,” Sirianni said.
This was the team that had blown a 21-6 halftime lead at the Linc to the woeful Cardinals, rolled over to the woeful Giants, and handed the NFC East title to the Cowboys.
Hurts so bad.
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There have been other Philly Phlops — the 1981 Sixers losing the last three games of the Eastern Conference finals to the Larry Bird Celtics, the 1968 defending champion Wilt Chamberlain Sixers blowing a 3-1 lead to the Celtics in the Eastern Division finals. And even the 2023 Phillies lost Games 6 and 7 of the NLCS at Citizens Bank Park to the D’Backs.
