Is Nick Sirianni willing to go down with Sean Mannion after dreadful Giants loss and an upcoming bye week?
Another unsightly loss, the Eagles' seventh in a row, will be followed by the bye week. Will Sirianni's staff look the same when the team returns to the field in Week 11?
Nick Sirianni took a long time before making his way to the podium for his postgame interview. It had been nearly 75 minutes since the Eagles suffered their seventh straight defeat — a despairing 19-11 loss to the New York Giants — and the embattled coach had yet to emerge.
And then he did, and explained his delay.
“I want to make sure I talk to every guy, first of all, after the game. Then a couple of the guys stopped in the office just to talk through it,” Sirianni said on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. “That’s not unusual.”
Normally, the Eagles coach’s cooling-off period after he addresses his players includes sitting in his office with owner Jeffrey Lurie, the owner’s son and front office member Julian Lurie, and general manager Howie Roseman. Players, coaches, and other team staffers might pop in, but clearly this occasion was different.
The 2-7 Eagles have hit their nadir of the Sirianni era. Nothing is certain about the future of the franchise with the season all but lost, but change during the upcoming bye week seems all but definite.
It could come in many forms. But a switch at the top of the coaching staff, even if Sirianni’s late arrival to his news conference elicited musings about his tenuous ground, is maybe the most improbable. Lurie has only fired one of his five coaches in-season, and the current one isn’t the type to blow off the owner’s holiday party around Christmas.
Chip Kelly had lost the faith of Lurie for reasons more important than skipping his cherished gathering. But as long as Sirianni’s culture doesn’t spiral into repeated blowouts or the loss of the locker room, he’s earned the right to finish the season.
» READ MORE: The Eagles are so bad that all you can do is laugh through the seven-game losing streak
The fact that players like Saquon Barkley are still entering through the coach’s open door — as Barkley did long after his teammates had left — further confirmed that the notion of Sirianni’s connectivity with his team still has merit.
But how much more can they take, especially on offense? The scheme isn’t just broken, it was never whole. The new coaches brought in to install the system have been unable to teach the details. And even though that’s been clear for weeks, Sirianni’s lone major solution was to bench his quarterback.
The QB switch wasn’t quite the Hail Mary that Joe Milton didn’t attempt on the game’s final play. The Eagles are long past salvation. But that move was just a rearranging of the deck chairs, with Tanner McKee one of the first to be tossed overboard ahead of Sean Mannion and Co.
By Tuesday’s trade deadline, another player or two could join Cam Jurgens on the rescue boats out of Philadelphia. What that would say about Sirianni’s fate is unclear, but he may no longer be able to protect his staff.
“We’ll talk,” Sirianni said when asked about coaching changes. “Obviously, right now my job is to be there for our guys and to go watch the tape and go look through everything. I’ll do anything I can to help this team win football games. Like I said, I’ll look at myself internally first and then go from there.
“Everything can always be on the table, but I don’t think you change just to change because that’s what your record says.”
» READ MORE: Eagles grades vs. Giants: New quarterback, same bad offense; secondary has several coverage busts in 19-11 loss
But you can change because your offense is arguably the worst in the NFL. The same problems that have plagued the Eagles all season were there again. An inability to consistently run the ball. Dysfunction in pass protection vs. the blitz. Almost nary an explosive play.
The Eagles’ longest plays from scrimmage were a Giants 30-yard pass interference penalty in the first quarter and a Milton 24-yard scramble late in the fourth. They averaged just a paltry 3.3 yards a play and were almost 10 minutes behind in time of possession.
Maybe getting receivers DeVonta Smith and Dontayvion Wicks back after three-game absences due to injury will help. But the problems on the offensive line are unlikely to go away. Rookie right tackle Markel Bell is a far cry from the retired Lane Johnson and left guard Landon Dickerson is just a shade of his former self.
O-line coach Chris Kuper has been served a bleep sandwich, but he clearly doesn’t have the answers. It’s all been made worse by the fact that he replaced Jeff Stoutland. Even if last season’s regression in the run game can partly be attributed to Stoutland, there’s little chance he would have allowed this mess.
Barkley and backup Elijah Mitchell averaged just 1.8 yards a rush. Milton was sacked seven times. “Unblocked Pressure” could be the epithet for Mannion’s brief tenure in Philly, or the name of a bad rock band.
“Anytime there’s a guy that’s free in that situation, we’ve got to look at ourselves as coaches first and say, ‘Did we do everything we could do to help them?’” Sirianni said. “And then it’s going to be an execution thing. So, it’s ‘both and.’ It’s never just one thing.”
With Mannion’s offense, it’s many things. The Kyle Shanahan-Sean McVay scheme gets its bones from the West Coast offense. So that means verbose terminology that has words for each position in the call.
Many teams use it, but it’s new to some on the Eagles and it’s one reason why plays have been late out of the huddle. But something’s apparently been lost in Mannion’s translation.
“It’s something that we have to look at this week,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said about the calls.
The Eagles have one-word calls that are acronyms, with each letter giving each position its responsibility. But there haven’t been enough of them dialed up, partly because the offense hasn’t had many opportunities to go up-tempo.
Mannion’s game plans and opening scripts haven’t been horrendous, but adjustments have been abysmal. The Eagles went three-and-out on four of their seven first half possessions, but still held an 8-6 lead at the break thanks in part to the return of a better version of Vic Fangio’s defense.
» READ MORE: The Eagles defense has turned a corner. Nick Sirianni and the offense are wasting it.
The second half opened with yet another three-and-out. In fact, the Eagles didn’t get a single first down in the third quarter. They’ve scored just 13 points total in the third frame this season. That’s pitiful and includes the period when Jalen Hurts and others were healthy.
There’s no doubt that Mannion, Kuper, et al. should be graded on a curve. But Sirianni has the teacher’s manual. He should know better than anyone if his assistants are capable of top marks or just benefiting from internal excuses about injuries, or Roseman’s roster.
Or has he come to realization that he no longer has the answer key without an experienced offensive coordinator and Stoutland? Sirianni fit most of the pieces into the jigsaw for his first five seasons and deserved all the accolades that came with the winning.
But given a more challenging puzzle after significantly altering the offense, all the questions that have been raised about his acumen warrant being asked again. Even he seems to be doubting himself.
“It’s not Sean. It’s all of us and it starts with me,” Sirianni said when asked about Mannion maximizing his players. “I think the correct question there to me is, ‘Do you think you’ve done a good enough job?’
“Obviously, I haven’t done a good enough job.”
He has the bye and maybe eight games to show he’s still capable.
With the Eagles’ season gradually going up in flames, there’s been plenty of external fingerpointing. The offense, specifically the line, has drawn considerable ire, especially in light of the Eagles parting ways with longtime, beloved assistant coach Jeff Stoutland. Stoutland’s track record on the offensive line is Hall of Fame-worthy. This year, with Chris Kuper as Stoutland’s replacement, the line has regressed.
Should Kuper shoulder most of the blame? What really happened between Stoutland and the Eagles that caused their relationship to fall apart? The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane dives deeper into one of the biggest “what ifs” from a frustrating season, framing Stoutland’s exit around four key questions. Listen here.
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