Nick Sirianni: ‘I cost us that game’ after coaching blunders waste a defensive gem in London
The Eagles lived out a sequel to last week's movie, with the offense faltering in the second half and wasting a strong effort from the defense.
LONDON — The fans showed up. Jalen Carter showed up: two sacks, three tackles for loss.
The offense? The head coach? The discipline? No-shows, all.
“What hurts is that you know the guys fought so hard, and then I don’t make the decision that, you know, that I should make at the end of the game,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “I cost us, that way, that game.”
True. And false.
For the third consecutive week the Eagles lost mainly because their offense failed to score a touchdown in the second half. They managed a last-minute, 48-yard field goal to take a 17-16 lead, but busted kickoff coverage gave that lead right back: a 57-yard, last-second field goal for a 19-17 loss.
The Eagles could have prevented that runback by kicking the ball out of bounds.
They could have left less time on the clock after their field goal; they left 8 seconds. Brutal.
This lands at the coaches’ feet.
Sirianni knows it, with linebacker Zack Baun saying afterward, “He told us this was on him. He talks about accountability, so it was cool to see him take accountability.”
“Yeah, it hurts because, in the sense of the guys fought their ass off, and you know had a chance to win the game, and then for me to not make the right decision in that, you feel like you let everyone down,” Sirianni said. “It’s just like you would feel if you missed a free throw at the end of the game.”
Marcus Hayes alerts
The coverage unit was without Jeremiah Trotter Jr., a special-teams ace who was ejected for fighting during the opening kickoff.
Discipline, folks.
It never should have come to that.
Scoring any points at all seemed a tall task Sunday against a ferocious Jaguars defense. The Eagles are five games into installing a scheme largely foreign to the legacy players on the roster. Further, 60% of their offensive line, their No. 1 receiver and their top two running backs did not play.
Still, that offense managed 14 points and led by a touchdown at halftime. And then, déjà vu.
“It’s inexcusable,” quarterback Jalen Hurts said.
Sirianni was hired in 2021 as the Eagles’ head coach because Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman believed his offensive acumen was sufficient. Two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl title later, incredibly, there is little proof they were right.
Why? Because after Sirianni lost the offensive coordinators from his Super Bowl staffs, the offenses regressed. Last year it regressed so badly that Lurie and Roseman courted offensive coordinators that would mimic the more complex schemes of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan.
They hired Sean Mannion.
Things have not gone well.
“We got to figure out our second-half offense because we’re putting together some nice first-half offense and have a lot of opportunities to put the game away, and we haven’t been able to do that,” Sirianni said.
If only Nick and Sean had produced like their fans.
A record 61,322 fans watched the host Jacksonville Jaguars play the Philadelphia Eagles. At least 61,323 of them were Eagles fans.
Bird brains took over Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on a cool London afternoon that was a wet Sunday morning back in Philadelphia, where nothing short of a miracle would have delivered a victory to a rag-tag ensemble of football players dressed in Eagles uniforms but with the pedigrees of plumbers, butchers, and small-engine repairmen.
“I was appreciative of all the Eagles fans that traveled because it was loud,” Sirianni said. “You could see that [the Jaguars] had some issues, you know, handling some of that noise in that game.”
With the fans in full throat — they caused three delay-of-game penalties — the Jags took six points off the board with two failed fourth-down tries from point-blank field-goal range before they finally converted a fourth down, this time for a touchdown, with 3:20 to play. It was a perfect throw from Trevor Lawrence, and an amazing, one-handed catch by Parker Washington, his sixth catch, second TD, and 124th yard.
To be fair, the better team with the best chance won.
Between the jetlag, the five-hour time zone difference, the 9:30 a.m. body-clock start, and the eight players absent due to either transaction or impairment, the Eagles, on a two-game losing streak, never had a chance. They started a left guard who, at 5-foot-11, is the shortest offensive lineman to weigh 290 pounds in NFL history. It looked like a 5-year-old Division III football program had begun to boost enrollment at a small liberal arts school, and, as eight-point underdogs, bookmakers thought so, too.
It seemed generous.
The Eagles played without top right tackle Lane Johnson, who retired, and replacement left guard Cam Jurgens, who was traded; running backs Saquon Barkley and Tank Bigsby, replacement center Drew Kendall, left guard Landon Dickerson, safety Marcus Epps, and edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, who were injured; and defensive end Jalyx Hunt and replacement running back Will Shipley, who also were injured before 90 seconds had elapsed in the third quarter.
Carter had been hurt, too. He’d fractured his right wrist in Game 1. For the next three games he wore a bulky cast that did not allow him to grip, and he was virtually invisible. He lost the cast and nearly won the game.
“It’s hard enough to play this game with two hands,” defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said last week. “When you have a cast on one, it’s going to have a negative effect at some point.”
He strip-sacked Lawrence on the fourth play from scrimmage, which helped force a punt. He strip-sacked Lawrence midway through the second quarter, which again helped force a punt. He tackled Bhayshul Tuten twice for losses on the same drive late in the second quarter, though Cooper DeJean got credit for the second TFL. His penetration on third-and-4 from the 4 set up fourth-and-2. He made the initial hit that stopped Chris Rodriguez Jr. on first-and-goal.
Carter was the best of a fine bunch.
Baun returned from a concussion and collected 11 tackles. DeJean had 10 tackles. Cornerback Quinyon Mitchell finally got his first regular-season interception in 37 starts, though, as his critics might note, he still hasn’t picked a ball off during the regular season in the United States.
It was not quite enough.
Not Sunday.
Not with Sirianni at the helm.
