The Best Day of the Season So Far
As far as I’m concerned, Eagles fans just enjoyed the most productive and encouraging day of the season on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.
Of course, the big news was that the Birds survived a 20-16 win over the putrid Cleveland Browns, keeping them (3-2) right in the middle of the NFC East race and shedding a bit of the stink from that awful performance in Tampa before the bye week.
Even bigger (and better) news was the idiotic behavior of Nick Sirianni, who returned to his high-school antics on the sidelines. In the course of a busy afternoon, the head coach got into a screaming match with Browns CB Denzel Ward, launched into a loud end-of-game finger-pointing lecture with the home fans behind the bench and then paraded his three kids out for the postgame news conference.
It’s safe to say the children – all under 9 – conducted themselves with far more maturity on Sunday than their embattled dad. In my day – a long, long time ago – Sirianni would have done the media briefing wearing a dunce cap and sitting in the corner.
But I’m seeing the cup half full today. I see his return to sideline stupidity as an extremely positive development for the Eagles – maybe even better than the win itself.
If that embarrassing display didn’t move Sirianni closer to the unemployment line, nothing will.
Remember, owner Jeff Lurie said during the offseason: “I think (Nick) recognizes that it can be a little bit counterproductive if he overdoes his own passion (on the sideline)”
Lurie was watching the same tired show we all saw on Sunday. My guess is, he already wasn’t thrilled with the team’s sputtering effort against a pathetic opponent. Then e owner got to witness his coach criticizing, veins popping from his newly-shaved head, the same people who have made Lurie a billionaire.
These are different times from those just a few years ago when I was barking into a microphone five days a week at WIP. In the olden days, the brutal finish in 2023 would have gotten the head coach fired. But in those days the outcry for Rob Thomson to be fired as Phillies manager would be ear-shattering right now, not barely a rumble under the breath of a few perceptive fans.
It takes more to get a coach or manager fired here these days, obviously. But at least Sirianni added to the argument for his dismissal by doing the one thing no sports figure has ever benefitted from in the history of our sports city – challenging the fans.
First of all, who is this man to question a history of passion for sports that is second to no American city? Yes, the fans were booing on Sunday, with total justification. The Eagles stunk for most of the game – off to a slow start again, slowed by bad play-calling (which he admits he dabbled in himself), and thwarted by dumb football throughout.
Sirianni loves to talk about the city’s passion for football, but now he wants that passion to travel in one direction only – cheers. It doesn’t work that way here, and it never will. You want the loudest cheers in sports? Earn them. Play well. Win. It’s that simple.
Second, Sirianni has always had a knack for taking a bad situation and making it worse merely by opening his mouth. His explanation that a few team leaders told him during the bye week to revert to his obnoxious sideline behavior was as insulting as the antics themselves. Who’s coaching whom here?
Bringing his adorable children to the news conference was charming a few years ago, when we were all experiencing together his shock and joy at being an NFL head coach. The kids are still cute, but their presence now is tired, like everything else about Sirianni these days.
The real story here is that the coach – out of ideas on how to reverse the fortunes of his underachieving team – has decided to turn back the clock to 2022, when he shocked the world by making it to the Super Bowl in his second season.
If he really wants to go back two years, he needs to bring back the brains of that operation – Colts head coach Shane Steichen – to do all of the deep thinking. There a good reason why Jalen Hurts hasn’t been the same player the past two years. He doesn’t have the right coaching now to bring out his best, and he won’t have it until Sirianni leaves.
I watched the game on Sunday with two of the best Eagles fans I know, the legendary Arson Arnie and Eagle Shirley. I endured their suffering when that blocked field goal made it a 10-10 tie at the half. I saw their joy when A. J. Brown made two incredible catches – one for a TD – and then that game-breaking touchdown by DeVonta Smith. Above all, I got to see, with my own eyes, how much an Eagles win still means to our city.
When the teams ran off the field at the half, fans booing their lungs out at the poor performance, I asked Arnie if he would be booing, too.
“Hell, yeah!” he said. “They deserve it.”
The next time Nick Sirianni wants to lecture the fans on how to behave, I hope he tries it with Arson Arnie standing there. I hope he does it with the fans who have suffered through bad coaches like him for most of their lives.
Better yet, I hope Sirianni is not here long enough to ever do it again.
Yes, it was a very good day for the Eagles on Sunday.
They won, and Nick Sirianni took another step closer to his long-overdue fate.