October 14, 2024
Colleen Claggett/For PhillyVoice
Nick Sirianni on the field after the Eagles beat the Browns at home on Sunday.
Nick Sirianni sat down for his Monday video call with the local media, alone this time.
A day after his Eagles narrowly beat the Cleveland Browns – one of the worst teams in football – at home 20-16, the immediate questions weren't about the offense's continued struggles to run a cohesive gameplan, Cooper DeJean's debut at nickel corner, the status of Jordan Mailata's health, or even who exactly is calling the plays right now.
Those did get asked eventually, but right away, the attention was on the head coach's theatrics in Sunday's immediate aftermath, when he was seen taunting Eagles fans behind the team's sideline as time expired, then brought his three young children to his postgame press conference when it was clear there were more than a few pointed questions to be asked about both himself and the team's performance.
"I would say this about that: What I was really doing, I was trying to bring energy yesterday," Sirianni said at the top of his call on Monday. "Energy, enthusiasm yesterday, and I'm sorry and disappointed on how my energy was directed at the end of the game.
"My energy should be all in on coaching, motivating, and celebrating with our guys. I got to have better wisdom and discernment of when to use that energy, and that wasn't the time."
Far, far from it.
Eagles HC Nick Sirianni appears to have some words towards the crowd as the clocked ticked down in the Philly victory. pic.twitter.com/XILkMvVamD
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 13, 2024
The Eagles' offense had stumbled out of the gate again, going three-and-out on its first possession and then failing to score in the first quarter for the fifth game in a row.
The unit continued to lack any sort of rhythm and once again got saved by just having overwhelming talent when A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith cashed in on pivotal scoring plays for the Eagles' only two touchdowns all game. The Eagles have still only scraped past 30 points just once, which was all the way back in Week 1 against the Packers in Brazil.
The defense, meanwhile, was much better about getting to the quarterback than in previous weeks, and rookie Cooper DeJean looked solid in his first-team debut at the nickel corner. The pass rush sacked Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson five times, and DeJean had a claim on one of them from a corner blitz.
However, that defensive success could just as much be tied to the Browns' outright incompetence as the Eagles' own performance. Cleveland's offensive line was extremely banged up going in, Watson has been spiraling rapidly after the badge of the league's worst quarterback (on top of maybe the all-time worst contract), yet still, the Eagles could only beat this disaster of a franchise by four points in a game that came down to the wire, when they were fully healthy, projected as heavy favorites, and near set up to instantly run away with it.
Sirianni had zero room to go at it with fans walking away from that – his team's own no less – nor have his kids at the podium with him during his press conference in a move that many instantly saw right through for what it was: Him putting up a shield.
The Eagles won, but it was clear that all of their lingering issues still remained after two weeks away.
Sirianni's doubters, which only seem to be growing in numbers the longer the Eagles continue to fumble around, haven't been silenced either. In fact, he might have only drawn even more ire to himself with his behavior on Sunday.
"This dude is a straight clown, bro. I just don't have any respect for what this man is doing."@damienwoody weighs in on Nick Sirianni's postgame comments following the Eagles win vs. the Browns. pic.twitter.com/8qzyW5XM9n
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) October 14, 2024
Again, the Philadelphia Eagles won this football game.
Sirianni said he speaks to team owner Jeffrey Lurie after every game, but at the time of the call, he also said that he hadn't spoken to Lurie yet on Monday. It wasn't clear if that meant about Sunday's game and how he handled it, or another conversation.
He also tied his composure to something that can be self-evaluated after the fact, similar to play calls that could've been different or in-game decisions that could've been executed better.
"There are play calls in the game that you go through and game management things that you go through and say 'You know, at the time, I thought this was the right thing,'" Sirianni said. "Then you evaluate everything. You evaluate the way the players played. You evaluate the things that you did as a coach to get them ready to play, or the calls that you made, or the management of the game that you did.
"You do the same thing with other things, which this one is."
That's hardly going to do much to settle the Delaware Valley down in his favor though.
Again, the Philadelphia Eagles won Sunday's football game.
Follow Nick on Twitter: @itssnick
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Sports
