Eagles Nick Sirianni Under Presure: “It's Philly, It's The NFL...We Have To Win"

The Eagles coach is on the hot seat, with odds listing him one of the first coaches who could be fired; how is he dealing with it?

Jan 15, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni pleads with the officials during the first half of a 2024 NFC wild-card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium. Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports / Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA – It took one year for Nick Sirianni to go from Super Bowl to hot seat, and make no mistake, the seat is magma-hot for the Eagles coach.

His odds to be the first coach fired aren’t good. He is listed at 8-1 by www.betonline.ag to be given a pink slip first. The Jets’ Robert Saleh tops the odds list at 5-1, followed by the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy (6-1) with the Saints’ Dennis Allen and the Bears’ Matt Eberflus at 7-1. Then comes Sirianni.

Sirianni’s approach to any pressure he is feeling is pragmatic.

“It's Philly,” he said. “It's the NFL. At the end of the day, we have to win enough. If we don't win enough, it's going to be hard for me to continue to work here, and I get that.”

Sirianni walked out of Raymond James Stadium in January not concerned about his future following a non-competitive 32-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

“I still knew that my three kids loved me, I still knew my wife loved me,” he said. “I still knew that. I still had some joy in my heart.”’

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni / John McMullen/Eagles SI

Still, his team looked like a shoo-in to win the NFC East and was on pace to be the No. 1 seed in the playoffs for a second straight year, riding the No. 1 seed to Super Bowl LVIII in 2022. The Eagles were 10-1 and then the bottom dropped out, with the Eagles losing five of six to close the season and then tacking on another mail-it-in effort in Tampa to complete an epic collapse.

Sirianni never blinked, insisting he didn’t think he’d be fired.

“Not really, not really,” he said.

After a lengthy pause, he continued: “I don’t know. I didn’t think that because at the end of the day, that’s something that’s not in my control. That was not in my control. Now, us winning games and the product on the field that was in my control and at the end of the year with seven games left, I failed at that.”

Now comes his biggest test. A stumbling start could lead to the unemployment line, and the schedule doesn’t look overly favorable, with just two games at Lincoln Financial Field until Nov. 3 when the Jaguars visit and one very far road trip to Sao Paulo to begin the season.

He has turned the offense over to Kellen Moore and the defense to Vic Fangio and will become a CEO/coach, but his approach won’t change.

“(It) goes back to the things that you can control and that I can't control,” he said. “I can control our daily process. I can control the message every day of, ‘Hey, this is what's important,’ and then everybody else has to continue to do that, too.

“That’s what I can control. I can't control anything else. I can't think about, ‘What if we start this way? What if we do this?’ I look really calm doing that, but that's so much easier said than done.”

“…I got another opportunity to coach the team. I’m grateful for that and my plan is to make Mr. Lurie know he made the right decision by bringing me back. But at the end of the day that’s not something I can control.”

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