Nick Sirianni nearly blows Eagles’ 22-point lead singlehandedly in coaching disasterclass

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni might have just coached the worst game of his career against the Jaguars on Sunday. Even though his team came out on top, the performance was marred by multiple mind-boggling decisions that turned a 22-point blowout into a needless close game.

ESPN’s Kevin Neghandi summed up Nick Sirianni’s numerous blunders quite succinctly:

4th and inches playcall
Going for 2 and taking XP off the board
Chasing the 2 rest of the game
Attempting a 57 yd, pin Jags and make them work. Nakobe Dean made the catch of his career to save that game.
This was Atlanta all over again but worse.

Completely unnecessary. https://t.co/b4oNUzVeBP

— Kevin Negandhi (@KevinNegandhi) November 4, 2024

Wow. I’m almost at a loss for words. The key word is “almost” because he made my Sunday much more emotionally taxing than it should have been.

If it weren’t for that insane interception by Nakobe Dean to ice the came, I’d be calling for Sirianni’s job. I know we like to overreact in this town, but this game was genuinely the most mind-numbing Eagles coaching job I’ve witnessed this century.

I do not doubt that he has established the locker room culture, and I understand how important that is for success in the NFL. You can’t win with a bad culture. Just look at teams like Chicago.

But at this point, I don’t think there’s a coach in the NFL who’s better at leaving points on the board than Nick Sirianni. That works against shitty teams like the Jaguars. Still, if the Eagles are angling to contend for a championship, they must clean up the decision-making before a good team can take advantage of their near-terminal stupidity.

Yes, sometimes play calls that are criticized when they fail would be called genius if they succeeded. But we have a large enough sample size to diagnose this as an actual problem.

The cute bullshit tush push speed option on fourth down might have been fine… if they weren’t called for a delay of game penalty. Then, another fourth down where they needed less than a yard, and Nick Sirianni dialed up some stupid rollout that was doomed before the snap.

Sure, the tush push got stuffed a couple of times, but it’s a yard. Just call what works and run it down their throats.

Jake Elliot is one of the best kickers in the league. Leaving him on the sidelines for most of the game and then trotting him out for a 57-yarder in the fourth quarter doesn’t do anybody any good.

Just let him kick some field goals and extra points instead of turning the ball over on downs and chasing two-point conversions.

Nick Sirianni lacks a feel for the game; that much is apparent. I don’t think all is lost, but there needs to be some soul-searching this week if he wants to make sure this doesn’t happen again against a competent opponent.

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