Eagles' Nick Sirianni Tries to Turn 'Friday Night Lights' Into Focus

Friday's game in Sao Paulo isn't the easiest for the players so the Eagles coach tried to tap into his youth to find a positive spin.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni watches the team warm up before a game against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. / Eric Canha-Imagn Images

PHILADELPHIA - It’s just under 5,000 miles from Jamestown, N.Y. to Sao Paulo, Brazil but that’s been the unlikely trajectory of Nick Sirianni’s life.

From a 10-year-old kid idolizing his local high-school heroes under the Friday night lights in western New York to the leader of one of the NFL’s marquee franchises playing in the first NFL game ever in South America under those same lights, just magnified.

“If you said to me ‘Hey, Friday night, September whatever, 2024, you're going to be the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles,’ - and I'm ten years old – ‘and you're playing the Green Bay Packers,’ I mean, I would've been pretty pumped about that and I'm still pumped about that,” Sirianni said on the eve of his item’s flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil where the Eagles will “host” the Packers at Corinthians Arena.

Friday night football is almost a religion to the Sirianni family where his father Fran was a well-respected coach at Jamestown High School and Sirianni’s older brothers starred before the Eagles coach got his turn.

“Wow, what an unbelievable thing to say we have a game Friday night,” said Sirianni. “That gives me goosebumps to think about that. Friday Night Football is what we all first -- those were the like my favorite players growing up, because my dad was a coach, were the high school players that played on Friday night-- John Briggs, it was my brother Jay Sirianni, Mike Sirianni, Pete Connelly. 

“Those were my favorite players growing up.”

And  ‘Friday Night Football.’ is what Sirianni was able to tell his players who may not be all that excited to make the nearly 10-hour plane trip to Brazil.

“The excitement should be so high on every level,” Sirianni said. “... This is why we fell in love with this game.”

Perhaps it sounds like a bit of an oversell by Sirianni but messaging is key because ultimately the coach believes that the team that handles the unique experience best will gain the upper hand.

The goal is to “control the things we need to control,” according to Sirianni. 

“Just like when a game rains, the team that handles the rain and looks at the rain as a -- that they're ready for it, is going to be able to play better in the rain,” the coach continued. “Same thing in a neutral site, whether it’s in London, wherever it is. It will be good for us. 

“It's going to be good for us to go play in a neutral site and handle the different things that pop up in the NFL. You play on a short week. Oh, this game got changed to that game. These are things you can't control. What we can control is our effort, we can control our attitude, we can control our core values, and we're going to focus on that this week.”

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