Three thoughts: Nick Sirianni’s fourth-down guts set the tone for the Super Bowl-bound Eagles

The defining moment arrived long before the confetti began to fall, long before “Dreams and Nightmares” began to play, long before Nick Sirianni celebrated his Super Bowl berth with a promise that the journey was not yet complete. Peel back the layers of touchdowns and penalties and knockout hits that rounded out the Eagles’ 31-7 victory over the 49ers in the NFC championship game, and this is where you will arrive:

Fourth down. One yard to go. Six minutes before halftime. The ball on the Eagles’ own 34.

“I don’t know how Sirianni walks around with the set of cajones that he has, bro,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “That’s crazy. How does the man walk around like that? Fourth down in a big playoff game? Kudos to him. Big cajones.”

This was it, the moment that won it, subsequently buried beneath all of the mayhem it spawned. That’s sometimes how it goes with great coaching decisions. The outcome makes them seem so obvious in hindsight that you forget they were not a simple matter of course. But nothing about this was obvious.

To appreciate the magnitude of the decision, you have to remember all the way back to when the NFC championship game was still a game. The 49ers had already withstood an opening-drive touchdown and the loss of their latest quarterback when Christian McCaffrey broke off a 23-yard touchdown run to tie the game at 7-7. Three plays later, they were poised to regain possession after Jalen Hurts came up a yard short of the sticks on a third down run. But then a funny thing happened: The Eagles offense looked to the sideline and saw the coaching staff waving for them to stay on the field.

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“I was looking at the sideline and they kept on waving, and I was just like, ‘[Bleep], this guy’s crazy,’” Mailata said.

How crazy was it? According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, it was only the second time since 1994 that a coach had gone for it on fourth down inside his own 35-yard-line in the first half of a playoff game. Everything about the situation called for conservatism. The Eagles were at home, the 49ers were down to the fourth quarterback on their depth chart, their defense the only reason to believe that they still had a chance. Had the Eagles come up short, San Francisco would have been on the edge of field-goal range if not already in it.

Yet Sirianni never blinked. He didn’t even appear to think. The Eagles’ offensive line stayed where it was and Hurts plunged up the middle for his latest first down quarterback sneak. From that point on, the 49ers were a broken team. Ten plays later, Miles Sanders burst through left guard behind a pulling Jason Kelce and rumbled into the end zone for his second touchdown of the game. A 7-7 tie became a 14-7 lead, the first of 24 unanswered points.

“That can be a demoralizer,” left tackle Lane Johnson said.

Were there bigger plays? Heck, there was a bigger fourth-down conversion (we’ll get to that one in a minute). But the big thing about Sirianni’s decision to go for it while well shy of midfield late in the second quarter was the unprecedented nature of it. This was a call that coaches simply do not make.

Big-time players make big-time plays. It sounds trite, and it is, but that’s because of how often it is true. Championships are team things, but they also are an aggregation of moments in which an individual on one side was simply better. You won’t find a better example of this than on DeVonta Smith’s one-handed grab over Jimmie Ward on the Eagles’ opening drive. This was fourth-and-3 from the 49ers’ 35-yard line. Again, there was never a doubt from Sirianni what he was going to do. For a few seconds, it looked like he should have had second thoughts. Jalen Hurts was scrambling to his left and seeing nothing in front of him. He looked at the first level and then at the second level and then something in the distance caught his eye: Smith racing down field a few yards ahead of Ward. The throw was high and long and had no business being caught. Somehow, it was. Smith elevated above his defender, extended his right arm as far as it would go, then crashed to the turf with the ball cradled at his waist. A television replay later showed Smith didn’t fully control the ball.

But this was Corey Clement tapping his toes in the end zone. This was Trey Burton finding Nick Foles with Philly Special. This was Brandon Graham sacking Tom Brady. This was that special of a moment, that special of a play.

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The man has been straight-up dominant in two straight playoff games. In the first quarter, he beat Downingtown’s Tyler Kroft to the edge and not only forced a Brock Purdy fumble but knocked the Niners rookie clean out of the game. On the 49ers’ second drive, Reddick went unblocked on a play fake to the opposite side of the defense, giving him a clear path to unload on backup quarterback Josh Johnson for a loss of 9. Johnson would later leave after absorbing a big-time hit from Ndamukong Suh. Not surprisingly, Reddick was in on the play, too.

Believe it or not, this actually is the third time in the last five years that a city will have a team in both the World Series and the Super Bowl. In 2020, Tampa Bay saw the Bucs beat the Chiefs and the Rays lose to the Dodgers. In 2018, the Red Sox beat the Dodgers in the World Series before the Patriots beat the Rams in the Super Bowl. Of course, New England and Tampa Bay technically are regions and not cities. In which case, you have to go back to 2012, when San Francisco saw the Giants beat the Tigers in the World Series and the 49ers lose to the Ravens in the Super Bowl.