January 05, 2024
Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports
The Week 18 finale against the Giants has suddenly become a crucial one for Nick Sirianni and the Eagles.
It's been a brutal few weeks for the Eagles, and with all the expectations taken into account, probably the tensest stretch ever of Nick Sirianni's run as head coach.
But publically, no one's been pointing fingers. The struggling defense, the stagnant offense, the highly questionable playcalling, everyone from the players to the coaching staff has been outwardly shouldering the blame for their part in this – even as scrutiny from outside the building grows which, justifiably, happens when a team with Super Bowl ambitions goes and drops four of its last five in increasingly devastating fashion this late into the game.
Lord knows Sirianni has taken tons of figurative bullets for his team these past few weeks, regardless of whether it keeps stoking the fire of an unhappy fan base and a more pressing media contingent.
For the Eagles, it's a matter of outside accountability versus the standard they hold themselves to in-house, and sticking to and upholding the latter is what will be key in their effort of getting this ship back on course before the playoffs.
"I just think there are things that don't need to be addressed to the outside world, and we keep things in-house," Sirianni said Thursday during his late-week press conference at the NovaCare Complex. "Just like a conversation with a player, I'm never going to talk to you guys about private conversations I had with a player because that's between us.
"Same thing with a play. Like, nobody really needs to know in those scenarios. All that matters is that we know, and all that matters is that we get better from whatever we did from it. If the play worked, we get better from that. If the play didn't work, we get better from that.
"This whole team, our third core value is accountability, and that's a portion of it. So, the portion of accountability I care about is what happens in this building."
The Eagles, however, have been left painfully trying to get better off of what didn't work following last Sunday's loss to an underachieving Cardinals team. They were up 15 points at the half, but let it all slip away.
Arizona's offense never had to punt even once as the Eagles' defense was near-helpless to cover, all while the offense stalled out with play calls that went nowhere on a crucial drive late from inside the red zone, leaving them to settle for a three-point lead off of a Jake Elliott field goal when everyone in the stadium knew the defense wasn't going to manage a stop – and they didn't.
It was a disaster, one Sirianni and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson still tried to justify the logic over, and a continued slide for the Eagles that star receiver A.J. Brown continued his vow of silence on until Wednesday.
Yet still, even with everything going wrong, even with fingers able to be pointed everywhere, the Eagles aren't doing that – at least not outwardly.
And maybe that's the right call as much as many don't want to hear it right now, because there's really not any time.
The Week 18 finale against the Giants up in the Meadowlands is only a couple of days away, there's still a chance at the division – though the odds are stacked against them for that now. So they'll likely jump right into the playoffs with the Wild Card round the week after anyway.
Any time wasted assigning blame is time wasted trying to fix up a group that was an NFL-best 10-1 and somehow, someway finding ways to grind out wins not all that long ago.
And there's a lot to fix, quickly – everyone saw that last Sunday.
Look, things are bad, but the season isn't over yet. A week of solid practice and a convincing win over the Giants, if they can pull it off, could shoot morale right back up. After that, who knows? The playoffs can be anything but predictable.
However, they will be for the Eagles if there hasn't been a hard look in the mirror already internally, along with a now hurried run through all of the measures to get better for it with only one regular season game left and a lot on the line.
"All I really care about is the accountability that takes place here," Sirianni said. "That's all that matters. That's all that matters is if we're getting better as a unit and that we're getting better as a team based off the mistakes we made and the good things we have done."
Clock's ticking to get it all together again.
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