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In the aftermath of the Philadelphia Eagles’ exciting win over the Saints on Sunday, C.J. Gardner stood up for his injured teammate while Saquon Barkley praised the play of the Giants’ Malik Nabers. And Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni didn’t get much time to celebrate the win because he seemed to remain on the hot seat despite his team beating the Saints.
Sirianni’s decision-making in the game, called bizarre by several observers, nearly cost the Eagles the win. One of the main ones came in the second quarter with 14 seconds left before halftime. The Eagles ran a fake “tush push” on fourth-and-1, but didn’t catch the Saints defense napping. It appeared the Saints expected the fake. And considering the game situation, why wouldn’t they look for trickery?
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni baffles NFL world
On the play, Hurts handed the ball to Saquon Barkley. Saints linebacker Pete Werner and defensive end Chase Young tackled Barkley short of the line to gain. Trailing 3-0, the Eagles blew a chance to tie the game going into the locker room. What makes matters worse, even if they got the first down, they almost surely would have needed to settle for the field goal with no timeouts remaining.
Perhaps Sirianni thought Barkley could get to the edge and score a touchdown. Or maybe he could have gotten the first down and ran out of bounds. That would have left enough time for one more shot at the end zone. But again, the situation left no reason for the Saints to sell out on the tush push.
Well, at least Sirianni owned the debacle in the postgame setting, according to pennlive.com.
“Just so anyone’s wondering, on that fourth-and-1 at the end of the (first) half, I called that. (Eagles offensive coordinator) Kellen (Moore) did not,” Sirianni said. “That’s what I thought was best for the football team in that particular case. That was my decision. I did it. It didn’t work, and I’ll get better from it.”
Hopefully he will get better. But his coaching choices have dropped the Eagles from NFL elite to playoff question marks. Sirianni said he always takes blame for the outcome of game events, according to a Facebook post by Jeff Skversky.
“If we make a mistake, a player makes a mistake, it’s not on that player,” Sirianni said. “It’s always on me and me first. Because I was taught early in this game by my dad that if you're coaching it and something happens on that field, that's your responsibility. That’s nobody else’s responsibility. (It's) being a man and that taking responsibility. That’s what being a man is about. So first and foremost the interception is on me.
“On the fumble, yeah. We gotta get two hands on the football. If you have one hand on the football and somebody touches your arm, it’s gonna come out. Jalen will learn from that and we’ll have a good response from that. It’s nice when you’re able to win and get out of it but we’ve got to take care of the ball better. There's no doubt the running backs are doing a really good job of taking care of that football.”
Is Nick Sirianni too aggressive?
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There’s a place for aggressiveness in football, especially in the NFL. Obviously. But perhaps Sirianni has been mesmerized by the constant success of the tush push. The Eagles found a chink in the NFL rules armor and exploited it — within the rules, for sure. But perhaps that made Sirianni anoint himself as brilliant and think every time he goes for it on fourth down it’s somehow going to work.
Give Sirianni credit for coming up with a tush-push option play. And early in the season is definitely the time to show. Make defenses think about it so it makes them hesitate when postseason play comes around (if the Eagles make it).
But Sirianni keeps fumbling on decisions. Perhaps he needs to keep two hands on his head. In the Week 2 loss to the Falcons, Sirianni went for it early on fourth and short. The Eagles failed to convert. Then in the fourth quarter, he chose to kick a field goal for a six-point lead when a first down would have clinched the win. Atlanta drove down the field for the go-ahead score and Hurts iced the loss with a poorly thrown pass that was picked off.
Sirianni defended his decision to kick the field goal, according to nj.com.
“What I did is kind of look through the entire league and said to our analytics department, ‘Could you give me every fourth-down decision when teams are in range in four-minute offense?’” Sirianni said on Wednesday. “So I asked for every time it was one point to five points the team was up under four minutes and every fourth down from the 34 and in.
“There were fourth-and-1′s that were going for it. I think there were 12 fourth-and-1′s. There was a fourth-and-3 that (the) Houston (Texans) went for (against) (the) Dallas (Cowboys) in 2022, and there was a fourth-and-2 that the Jets went for against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But that was it. And the rest were field goals.
“I put myself in that situation prior to the call, so I felt like in the moment my conviction was I knew exactly what I wanted (to do). Again, is the outcome always what you want? No. But your conviction in a call (is what matters). I was completely convicted that kicking a field goal there was the right decision based off all my studies.”
But come on, Nick. That sounds like a lot of analytical nonsense. When Sirianni sits in front of the owner with his job on the line, will he say, ‘I should remain the head coach because I followed the analytics?’ Excuse-making doesn’t wear well.
