Nick Sirianni has lost five straight games, maybe the Eagles locker room, and without a miracle, his job
He's a CEO coach responsible for nothing, and everything, and the most important things: Preparation, organization, and effort. The Eagles are deficient in every category.
When your allegedly elite defense declines to defend during a Monday Night Football game against the arch-rival Dallas Cowboys, you’ve got problems.
Nick Sirianni’s got problems.
In fact, he might be the problem.
The Eagles hadn’t lost five straight games since Doug Pederson’s first year at the helm in 2016.
They matched that slide Monday with a 38-21 disaster against a shoddy, flawed, previously two-win Cowboys club. It is a disaster that could spell the beginning of the end of the Nick Sirianni Experience.
» READ MORE: Eagles drop fifth straight; porous defense struggles to get off field in 38-21 loss to Cowboys
His allegedly elite defense rolled over in a manner most alarming, and his ill-conceived offense stalled as soon as the Cowboys adjusted. These are signs of a team that just isn’t committed anymore.
“I feel like I’ve been here before,” said left tackle Jordan Mailata, who has never lost five games straight. “I was here in 2020. Was here in ’21.”
Pederson was fired after 2020. Sirianni’s job was in jeopardy for a lot of 2021, especially after the Eagles started the season 2-5. They went 7-3 down that stretch.
“I think back on the 2021 season — the way we finished that year propelled us into the Eagles we’ve been the last four years,” Sirianni said.
He spoke after the game as if he was resigned to the fate of a losing season, with a degree of fatalism. He said all the right things about growth and fight and accountability, but he said them like a man who’d been embarrassed in front of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck, with Michael Irvin, Jason Kelce, and Pat McAfee in the house.
Sirianni knows 2026 is different from 2021. He knows that his coaching staff and his personnel are inferior. He is a mercurial and volatile man, but this knowledge made him oddly reflective and grateful as the saxophonist laid out the national anthem Monday night.
“This is something I prayed for as a kid,” Sirianni said.
Well, not exactly this; not a beatdown by the city’s most hated team in prime time against Jerry Jones and Brian Schottenheimer.
He has won at a historic rate, but with every loss he becomes more and more coincidental to the winning of the past. Seldom has a coach with so much immediate success been so maligned by his failures.
Well, we reap what we sow.
Marcus Hayes alerts
When one of your biggest claims to fame involves taunting the fans of the top franchise in recent NFL history, the Chiefs, and when another of your most significant moments involves taunting the second-best franchise in recent NFL history, your own Eagles, you haven’t banked a lot of equity in grace. He just got fined $250,000 for berating officials. He lost a game in London three weeks ago due to poor time management, flawed strategy, and playing a sleep-deprived quarterback with blood clots on his mind.
When you’re the braying mule, when things go sideways, you’re the target.
If at all possible, you’re to blame.
Sirianni is an easy target, because, more than anyone, Sirianni is to blame.
You’re making $17 million.
You’ve got a $6 million defensive coordinator in Vic Fangio.
Your general manager, Howie Roseman, is considered the best in the business.
In an era of offensive or defensive head coaches who call their own plays, you’re a CEO coach. You’re responsible for nothing, and everything, and the most important things:
Preparation, organization, and effort.
The Eagles are deficient in every category.
Yes, they have injury issues. Their top two receivers and one of their top edge rushers missed Monday’s game. Two backup running backs are on Injured Reserve, and the starter, Saquon Barkley, who missed the previous 11 quarters with a hamstring injury, came back for a first-quarter touchdown Monday, then missed most of the second half with a back injury.
Jalen Hurts, their $52 million quarterback, is likely gone for the season with blood clots in his lungs.
So what.
It’s the NFL.
Every team has injury issues.
“That’s life in the NFL,” Sirianni agreed. “I’ll never use that as an excuse. At the end of the day all that matters is if we won or lost, and if we continue to get better.”
» READ MORE: Hayes: Did Eagles protect Jalen Hurts enough with his life-threatening blood clot? Experts say yes — generally.
They lost, for sure.
They might have gotten better, but then, they played a defense ranked last by Pro Football Focus this season and in the bottom-six the last two seasons. Certainly, the defense didn’t get better.
Some of their best players played poorly. Left guard Landon Dickerson shined early in his return from a five-game absence but faded late. The Cowboys dominated young, expensive defensive tackles Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis. Safety/corner Cooper DeJean struggled again at both positions.
These guys were healthy.
No, Sirianni’s issues go far deeper than a few tender hamstrings and lower lumbar strains.
Sirianni has issues concerning his coaching credentials and his culture.
Think about it.
You’re an offensive coach, and you’ve gone to two Super Bowls, but, after each, you’ve lost your offensive coordinator, and your team’s offense evaporated.
Your best wide receiver, A.J. Brown, forced a trade that crippled your club for the 2026 season.
Your best assistant, offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland, retired this winter after you and former offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo demoted him by stripping him of run-game coordinator duties in the 2025 season, then hired 34-year-old Sean Mannion to be his boss, who is wholly unqualified for the job and 30 years younger than Stoutland.
The reddest of the red flags:
Your best offensive lineman, Lane Johnson, retired after playing three games this season.
Suddenly, Philadelphia is a place people don’t want to be.
Not the city.
The football locker room.
Who’s in charge of that?
Nick Sirianni.
For the moment.
The Eagles seem reluctant to address the handling of the Jalen Hurts blood clots saga, but the key questions involved in the story aren’t going anywhere. Throughout the week, in the absence of remarks from general manager Howie Roseman or team medical personnel, head coach Nick Sirianni was peppered by reporters. He’s offered few details in return. After speaking with high-ranking medical officials currently or previously employed by NFL teams, The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane frames four central issues that remain unanswered, while also looking at what this situation means for Hurts’ future in Philadelphia. Listen here.
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