Early this season, most analysts gave heavy praise to Nick Sirianni and the Philadelphia Eagles. The team looked completely dominant aside from a bizarre loss to the New York Jets as Philadelphia took a dominant lead in the NFC with a 10-1 record through their first 11 games.
Well obviously the wheels have completely fallen off the wagon this season as Philadelphia has gone 1-4 in their last four five games. The team we all remembered dominantly defeating pretty much anyone they played against looks like a distant memory as Philadelphia couldn’t even manage a victory against perennial bottom feeder Arizona this past week with a 35-31 loss to the Cardinals.
Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni Finally Faces a Real Regular Season Test
After starting his tenure in Philadelphia with a 33-19 record, Siranni’s team has finally had a rough run of form here in the past month or so and all of a sudden, the man many clamored as the best coach in the NFL has some major question marks. The elite defense that he has exhibited over the past few seasons looks completely overwhelmed and the offense can’t get much of a rhythm going. Even the patented “tush push” hasn’t been able to help this team.
The hypothesis that I pose is that while he made it to a Super Bowl in his second season as the head coach in Philadelphia, Sirianni is simply a benefactor of a fairly common lagging effect.
With the way the NFL Salary Cap and Draft work, it can take some time for a team to clique even after the team has made terrific decisions. What has tended to happen is elite coaches have made terrific draft picks, built a terrific team in free agency but get fired just before the team really has a chance to build steam.
I have made this argument with several coaches in the NFL including Sean McVey, Mike Tomlin and now Nick Sirianni. Sean McVey and Mike Tomlin benefited from tremendous decisions being made by Jeff Fischer and Bill Cowher before them but (particularly this season for McVey) have demonstrated that they could at least limp along after a semi to full recycling round of players on the team. Sirianni has yet to prove that he can make the adjustment.
Therefore, the real hero behind the elite Philadelphia team over the last few seasons is current Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson. In reality, Pederson was fired in 2020 because of the injury to Most Valuable Player candidate Carson Wentz while the offense was never really able to recover. For example, Pederson built the elite offensive line that really was the big force in the Super Bowl run last season. Pederson drafted current superstar quarterback Jalen Hurts and Pederson established the elite defense that pushed Philadelphia through the postseason last season.
Sirianni has simply benefited from the talent of another. The only major move made by Sirianni was the trade for A.J. Brown in 2022. Now the man will have to figure out how to contend with an aging defense and an offensive line on the brink of retirement. I would argue this is the last chance for Philadelphia as key members of these units will most likely retire in the offseason and the team will take another huge step backward.
