October 16, 2024
Colleen Claggett/For PhillyVoice
Nick Sirianni on the field after the Eagles beat the Browns at home on Sunday.
Are power rankings completely dumb and meaningless? Yes. Yes, they are. However, personally speaking, whenever I see them, I click. And now that I've sucked you in with promises of many power rankings, you'll read it and like it.
Here's where people around the country have the Eagles ranked after Week 6 of the regular season. Oh, and here's our version of these sellout rankings, too.
How much did we really learn from Sunday’s win over the Browns? We certainly learned that A.J. Brown makes a difference, catching six balls for 116 yards and a touchdown in his return to the field. There were also nice contributions from Grant Calcaterra, subbing for an injured Dallas Goedert, and Cooper DeJean, the rookie DB who took Avonte Maddox’s nickel spot Sunday and seemed to thrive in the role. But the Eagles still struggled to put away a limited Browns team in Philly, needing a few Cleveland penalties and a late deep pass to Brown to close it out. They’re 3-2 now but have been outscored on the season, largely thanks to opponents’ 23-0 first-quarter scoring advantage. Yep, we’re five games into the Eagles' season, and they haven’t scored in the first 15 minutes in any of them.
#JimmySays: The Eagles' scoring, by quarter:
| Quarter | Points per game | NFL rank |
| 1 | 0.0 | 32 |
| 2 | 8.2 | 12 |
| 3 | 5.8 | 11 |
| 4 | 7.2 | 9 |
| TOTAL | 21.2 | 18 |
When you have the offensive line and the receivers that the Eagles have — and yes, I know, Brown missed three games — 21.2 points per game isn't anywhere near good enough. A huge reason they're not putting points on the board is because they getting out to dreadful starts every week.
Lesson learned: It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Coming off a 1-6 collapse to end last season, the only way coach Nick Sirianni and the Eagles could avoid turmoil was by getting off to a hot start to soothe a fan base on edge. That didn't happen. The Eagles are 3-2 and have looked perfectly ordinary despite boasting one of the better offensive rosters in the league. Things came to a head in a Week 6 home win over the Browns when the crowd voiced its displeasure over the course of a lackluster performance and Sirianni responded by yelling at some patrons at the end of the game. Maybe things will settle down as we get deeper into the season, but that's hard to picture at the moment.
#JimmySays: The Eagles have really had two opportunities to soothe the fan base — a hot start, as noted above, and then on a reset after the bye. They looked worse after their bye against an awful, banged-up team, which is kind of hard to imagine.
Never a good sign when your head coach is becoming a chronic distraction, especially at a time when you're struggling to beat, arguably, the worst team in the league. Worth monitoring, even though Philly isn't scheduled to face an opponent currently with a winning record until Nov. 14.
#JimmySays: "Chronic distraction" is a fair way to put it. I thought this was a great question posed to Sirianni during his Monday Zoom press conference, from Olivia Reiner of the Inquirer:
"We saw a similar scene at the end of the Saints game with Jalen Carter talking to some of the players and the fans. You come over to him and try to talk to him and maybe calm him down. Obviously with what happened yesterday, how do you view yourself as someone who sets the temperature, the tone for the players in their actions, their behavior? And when you fall short of that, how do you address that or take accountability with the players?"
"Yeah, it's an emotional game, but everything – shoot, I'll start every meeting with the things that I screwed up," Sirianni said. "It's just being honest and taking accountability and having honest conversations, whether that's with the team or in private, as we talked about today.
"And so, like I told you guys, literally everything on that field is my responsibility. That's from actions and behaviors, and plays, and everything. I take a lot of pride in that, and when it doesn't go the right way, I put myself through the mud for that. Everything. Everything has my name on it. That's why this self-reflection at the end is critical. The only way you get better is if you look yourself in the mirror and say what you could have done better."
The real answer is probably that he can't reasonably address that kind of behavior with his players, when he's a bigger offender than any of them. OK, maybe not CJGJ, but the rest of them.
Nick Sirianni yelling at fans at the end of the game didn’t look good. But if we believe fans on Reddit, via Eagles Nation, they were getting on Sirianni to run the ball more, Sirianni said they would and at the end he was telling the fans he did what he said. Seems innocuous. If that changes the perception of what happened.
#JimmySays: Honestly, I think it's worse for Sirianni if he bothered engaging with some "run the ball" jabroni than if he was barking back at some sort of other hostile fan.
They won a game against Cleveland, but it still doesn't look right. The offense isn't good, which remains a concern. Nick Sirianni needs to focus on coaching and not the fans.
#JimmySays: CBS with the fire🔥analysis as always.
If Nick Sirianni keeps arguing with fans, he’ll be sitting with them sooner than later.
#JimmySays: Finally, a pithy PFT blurb that hits.
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