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Eagles are off to a great start but need to work on finishing, Nick Sirianni says

They are 6-0 at the bye week, but they had to sweat out some of those wins. "We want to be able to end a game and put it away,” the coach says.

The Eagles offense waits for the start of play during the Sunday night win against the Dallas Cowboys.
The Eagles offense waits for the start of play during the Sunday night win against the Dallas Cowboys.Read moreHeather Khalifa / Staff Photographer

The Eagles enter the bye week with a perfect record at 6-0.

Through the first 1½ months of the regular season, they’ve recorded home victories over the Vikings, Jaguars, and Cowboys, with road victories at Detroit, Washington, and Arizona. Each game has offered a different story, with the team proving it can win in a multitude of ways.

Even though the Eagles are the only remaining undefeated team in the NFL, it could be argued that they have yet to play to their full potential or put together a complete, four-quarter performance.

» READ MORE: The class of the NFC, Birds still have their concerns

“There’s always things to work on,” coach Nick Sirianni said Monday evening. “We can be even more demanding and crazy with what our standard is. Being 6-0 is awesome, but [I’m] putting my foot on everybody and asking, ‘Do you like this? Does it feel good? All right, then we’ve got to keep going.’ We have to dive even harder.”

The Eagles boast the second-best scoring differential in the league with an average winning margin of 9.3 points, but many of their contests have been sweatfests until the final buzzer. Following every victory, quarterback Jalen Hurts has repeated the same message centered on the team not playing up to its standard.

“You want to finish games,” Sirianni said. “There’s no doubt we’ve had good first halves, and the second halves — whatever it is, we haven’t played a complete game in the sense that we haven’t really blown open a game when we’ve had two-score leads. We’ve had two-score leads in every game this season. We want to be able to end a game and put it away.”

During Sirianni’s first season in 2021, the Eagles had the latest bye week in the NFL; they weren’t granted their annual one-week vacation until mid-December. However, this season, the Eagles are benefiting from their scheduled time off in mid-October.

The bye arrives at an ideal time with several players dealing with injuries. All five starting offensive linemen have sustained injuries over the last week, including right tackle Lane Johnson, who suffered a concussion Sunday night in the victory over Dallas. Sirianni didn’t offer much of an update on Johnson’s status, but center Jason Kelce acknowledged that nearly every lineman is looking forward to some time away.

The Eagles met with players on Monday before allowing them to go their separate ways. After this weekend, the team will reconvene with its sights set on its next game: Oct. 30 against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Lincoln Financial Field.

As for the coaching staff, Sirianni doesn’t appear to be applying any pressure on the brake pedal.

“We’re going to work like crazy this week,” he said. “[Monday morning] was all about the game review, Monday night is all about our coaches doing their self-scout projects and other projects I gave them. Tuesday will be us reviewing those, and then we’ll get started with our next opponent on Wednesday.”

He concluded with a smile: “We’ll see where we’re at on Thursday, and if I’m feeling generous, maybe the guys will have the day off.”

    Josh Tolentino
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    I cover the Philadelphia Eagles. When I'm not, I can likely be found at a dog park in the city with Cash, my German Shepherd/Husky-mix.
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