Nick Sirianni’s job hung in the balance while his boss, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, was shopping for a new luxury in Saint Martin last offseason. It took nine days before he announced his decision: Nick Sirianni would return for a fourth season after his third ended miserably, with six losses in the last seven games.
The rest is history, and Lurie’s decision to run it back again with a coach who takes as many verbal punches from media everywhere as quarterback Jalen Hurts does is one of the more underrated decisions of the Eagles' offseason a year ago.
Sirianni isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With only one year remaining on his current deal, a contract extension will happen at some point this offseason. His fifth year in charge is on the horizon.
Head coaches don’t typically last long in Philly, but Sirianni should have enough staying power to overtake the tenure of the third-longest head coach in team history – Dick Vermeil, who was here from 1976-82.
Greasy Neale, who was with the Eagles from 1941-50 and won back-to-back NFL Championships in 1948 and 1949, is next on the list. The leader, of course, is Andy Reid, who spent 14 years in charge before going to Kansas City.
Sirianni has already been to two Super Bowls and is 1-1 and has been to the playoffs all four years he has been here
He's the only coach to lead the Eagles to more than one Super Bowl and only the third in NFL history to reach two Super Bowls in his first three years. The others are Joe Gibbs and Mike Tomlin.
His overall record is 54-34 (.701) that includes a 6-3 record in the postseason. In the regular season, he is 48-20 and his .706 winning percentage is 5th-highest ever, behind Guy Chamberlin, who coached in the 1920s, and 1960s-1970s legends Vince Lombardi and George Allen.
Already, Sirianni has helped three of his coordinators land head coaching gigs – Shane Steichen (Colts), Jonathan Gannon (Cardinals), and, last week, Kellen Moore (Saints).
Detractors will point to the rosters he’s had, and even Sirianni will say that he was fortunate to step into the situation he did – with leaders such as Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, Brandon Graham, and Fletcher Cox already in place.
What critics don’t understand is what they do not see, because it’s done behind closed doors, so only players see it. The detractors think anybody can take a talented roster and win, forgetting that egos can come into play if left unchecked at the door. And speaking of doors, Sirianni has an open-door policy, scheduling sit-downs with players to learn more about them and what’s going on in their lives outside the locker room.
He is a players’ coach. They have his back because he has theirs.
And it leads to this, from Saquon Barkley: “The beauty of this team is that we all want to see each other succeed. And when you have all those guys and all those super-star names and all buy-in to that mindset, buy into a team effort, that’s how you become World Champs.”
If you don’t think Sirianni fosters and leads that buy-in, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The 30,000-foot view he said he would take before the season started became a punchline. What would he do after Kellen Moore was brought in to instill new offensive ideas and Vic Fangio was given control of the defense?
Think about it. Sirianni’s job was on the line this season, and he decided to turn over control of the offense and defense to others.
His strength is also his greatest weakness, per Lurie, and that is the emotions that sometimes lead to him getting carried away in arguments with fans, opposing players, and officials.
“One of the things I really admire about Nick is he's incredibly passionate,” said Lurie. “A lot of the time, sometimes that passion spills over. He is his own (biggest) critic and he's very self-aware. He's very aware of when he wishes he didn't do certain things sometimes.
“He's growing. He grows all the time. I've seen that with every coach we've ever had. You know, Nick is just a very prime example of that. A very prime example. As connected as he gets as a human being and as genuine, he's also connected to himself and he goes, ‘What was I thinking?’ or something like that. It's a great quality.”
