'Boring' Eagles Have Made Winning A Habit

The Eagles have started 12-2 or better for the second time in three seasons and for the fourth time this century.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni / Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA - Over the past few weeks, Nick Sirianni has started to describe his Eagles team as “boring.”

When the head coach does it, the adjective is usually meant to fight off outsiders looking down the road toward an NFC East championship, perhaps the No. 1 seed in the conference, or personal accolades whether it might be rushing records and MVP talk swirling around Saquon Barkley, a potential Defensive Rookie of the Year nod for Quinyon Mitchell, or maybe the looming All-Pro status of players like Jordan Mailata and Zack Baun.

The latest boring salvo was dropped Friday when Sirianni was asked about Barkley’s historic chase at Eric Dickerson’s all-time rushing record vs. managing the team down the stretch in what is projected to be another potential Super Bowl run. 

“We'll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Sirianni said Friday. “We are focused on winning this game [against Washington on Sunday] and what we need to do to win this game.

“I'm sorry guys, I want to be respectful of your questions and answer your questions, but we're boring. Our sole focus is how we get better today in practice.”

Sirianni studies great coaches and their approaches.

A consensus among leaders is that success finds the people who are too busy working for it to be looking for it.

“Laser-focused through everything,” Sirianni said of the approach. “Laser-focused at practice. We need a great day at practice today to help us win this football game against a very good football team. That's literally all we're thinking about. That's all we're focused on.”

In all honesty, Sirianni’s teams have become boring, albeit in a different way than the coach describes.

After all, preaching about going "1-0 this week" is public domain in the NFL from the best coach to the worst. What has made the Eagles boring is that they've tapped into the sentiment more consistently than almost everyone else.

The 2024 team is the 19th in the Jeffrey Lurie era to reach the postseason. Since the turn of the century, only the Tom Brandy/Bill Belichick Patriots (18) have more playoff berths than the Eagles.

Since Nick Sirianni arrived the franchise has not missed the playoffs and its current 10-game winning streak is an organizational record. The Eagles have started 12-2 only four times in their history and two of them are under Sirianni (2022, along with this season).

Sirianni himself is 46-19 (.708), the sixth-best winning percentage in NFL history and of the five in front of him the last one to coach an NFL game was John Madden in 1978.

That means in the last 46 years not coach has won at a higher clip than Sirianni.

Winning has become a habit in Philadelphia.

So yes, the Eagles will probably find a way to beat the 9-5 Commanders on Sunday to clinch the NFC East and at least the No. 2 seed in the conference because they’re boring and that’s what they typically do.

“I know that doesn't make for a great story, but our locked-in focus is here,” Sirianni said. “The more you think about things that are out of your control, the less you're going to think about the things that are in your control.”

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