Philadelphia Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni Fueled by Connection, Competitiveness: 'See Ya!'
KANSAS CITY - You’ve all seen the video by now of a fired-up Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni exiting GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium after a 21-17 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, a measure of “revenge” from what the Eagles believe was a self-inflicted Super Bowl LVII loss to Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and Co.
“Hey, I don’t hear s*** anymore Chiefs fans,” Sirianni screamed while led off the field by Eagles’ PR chief Bob Lange and shadowed by director of team security Dom DiSandro.
A short pause was followed by another bellowing scream of “See Ya” to the fans leaving disappointed and set to face the daunting bumper-to-bumper traffic fleeing the KC sports complex.
The Eagles didn’t play all that well on Monday night but did what they typically do, find a way to win and advance to a league-beat 9-1 record. That mark comes along with the comfort of a 29th consecutive week at the top of the NFL standings and the assurance that won’t be ending for at least a couple of more weeks.
Behind the scenes, the revelry continued in the narrow corridors down in the bowels of Arrowhead with Sirianni playfully chastising one reporter from the team’s flagship radio station who predicted Kansas City could win because "they have the better coach and quarterback."
Once things died down a bit, Sirianni reverted back to the more conventional way of doing things.
“Just another game,” said Sirianni after enduring four quarters of rain in chilly temperatures. “It was a big game because it was our next one. It felt good to get a win against a really good football team in a hostile environment.”
Nick Sirianni after beating the Chiefs.
John McMullen/Eagles Today
What I can tell you is that this game was more than that for Sirianni, who started his NFL coaching career with the Chiefs in 2009 after forging a relationship with former KC coach Todd Haley in a Western New York gym.
Sirianni spent the next four seasons in Kansas City and met his wife there before the nomadic existence of NFL coaching kicked in. Ironically, it was Andy Reid arriving for the Chiefs that forced Sirianni to look elsewhere, ultimately landing with the then-San Diego Chargers in 2013.
It’s a cramped post-game press area at Arrowhead and by the time this reporter got done with Jalen Carter in the Eagles locker room, the room was full with others lobbing questions toward Sirianni.
At the end of the session, I was able to get a quick walk and talk with Sirianni as he headed back down the hallway back to the locker room, intent on asking a football-centric question about meshing the outside screen game (which wasn’t all that successful) with the inside screen game to D’Andre Swift (which showed signs of life).
The query was asked but it became secondary as Sirianni was stopped every few feet by someone congratulating the coach on his success. Most of them were Chiefs or stadium employees and Sirianni knew them all by name, a decade after leaving Kansas City in the rear-view mirror.
It was a small sign of the connection mindset that Sirianni leads his five core coaching principles with that have turned the NFL on its ear to the tune of a mind-blowing 26-2 record over the last 28 regular-season games started by Jalen Hurts.
Better coach? Better quarterback?
Maybe the Chiefs have the more accomplished pair but in the NFL, objects in the rear-view mirror are always closer than they appear.
“It was an honor to share the field with him. I would trade winning last year with this one,” Sirianni said when discussing Reid, a future Hall of Famer, before dropping the shield for a moment and allowing a little peek behind his curtain of competitiveness.
“But, it feels good to get this one.”
