October 5, 2026
Here’s some unsolicited advice for Nick Sirianni after that unfathomable collapse by the Eagles against the Rams on Sunday. Now would be a perfect time to bring back those COVID masks from six years ago. This is definitely not a week when the embattled Eagles head coach wants to get recognized out in public.
With a couple of ridiculous fourth-down decisions amid a team-wide collapse in the second half, Sirianni led his battered and bruised team straight into the abyss, reviving a comatose LA offense until it came all the way back to shock the Birds, 24-20.
Among many of Sirianni’s rote responses after losses, his favorite is that failure is never the fault of any one person, or any one element of a team. No, sir. Defeats are the result of a confluence of failures.
But, of course, it all starts with him, the head coach. He loves to say that at his tired post-game media sessions. The first person to blame after a loss is Nick Sirianni.
Well, right he is this time. Sirianni’s coaching was easily the biggest reason for the fourth-quarter meltdown that dropped the Eagles to 2-2 and raised countless new questions about how good this team is – and how poorly Sirianni is coaching this season.
Think about it. Pretty much everything that went wrong in those frantic final minutes on Sunday exposed a coaching staff that loses its equilibrium whenever confronted by adversity.
The Eagles made no effective adjustments at halftime – for the fourth straight game – were a historically bad 0 for 12 on third downs, botched two fourth-down decisions that would have secured the win and gasped to the finish line again, with a defense clearly not conditioned well enough to withstand a deluge of three-and-outs by the impotent Birds offense.
Don’t misunderstand; Sirianni wasn’t alone in his dysfunction against the Rams. New offensive coordinator Sean Mannion thinks the games are only 30 minutes. Between one failed third-down play-call after another and all of the league-leading three-and-outs, Mannion has sabotaged both the offense and defense in the final minutes of the past two losses.
In the second half, the Eagles passed for a net total of 10 yards. They completed two passes after the half.
Those are not typos. 10 yards. Two passes.
Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts needed to rise above the losses of DeVonta Smith, Lane Johnson and Saquon Barkley — and the previous injuries to Dallas Goedert and Landon Dickerson — against the struggling Rams. He did the opposite. When the Eagles needed a hero, the veteran quarterback disappeared.
Even Vic Fangio, clearly the brains of a coaching staff being fitted today for dunce caps, had no answers at the end. On a day when Matthew Stafford looked every day of his 38 years for the first 53 minutes of the game, the defensive coordinator watched the Rams drive right down the field twice in the final seven minutes with a startling lack of resistance. LA amassed 177 yards in the last two touchdown drives. In 20 plays, they faced third down only twice.
It was all so frustrating, so nauseating. And – as he certainly agrees by now – it all started when the coach made two reckless and illogical decisions that altered the momentum in the game.
The worst came on fourth down from the LA two-yard line, with the Birds up 10 and 7:31 left in the game. Instead of kicking a chip-shot field goal, the offense tried a run by Hurts that was easily snuffed, triggering an offensive explosion by the Rams that consumed 98 yards in three minutes and 27 seconds.
“I wanted to go up three scores,” Sirianni said later.
Even more illogical was Sirianni’s decision to go for it on fourth down from his own 38-yard line with a minute left in the third quarter leading 20-10. Why? If he wasn’t concerned about field position, didn’t it make more sense to kick another field goal. After all, Jake Elliott had already boomed one from 56 yards. He hasn’t missed a kick all season.
The ensuing Tush Push didn’t work. The best speculation after the game was that Sirianni was trying to make up for a decision he regretted last Monday in Chicago to punt on fourth down late in that loss. The fact that the Eagles defense bailed Nick out after he handed the ball to the Rams with a short field was small consolation.
Most of the arguments today are that Nick’s decision to go for it on the two-yard line was logical because the Eagles could still lose with two late Rams touchdowns. That’s not the right argument. The right argument is that if he kicked the field goal on the first fourth-down gamble, then only an idiot would not have kicked the ball again on the second one with 7:31 left in the game. (Of course, the way Sirianni coached yesterday, all bets are off. Yesterday, he coached like someone whose record is 31-67 and not the other way around.)
It’s clearer than ever that, among the many issues plaguing Sirianni’s team, the Eagles didn’t prepare properly for the 2026 season. The epidemic of injuries, the conditioning of his defense late in games and the growing pains of his new offensive coordinator all point to a lack of preparation and experience.
What I find especially annoying is how the coach takes the low road while pretending he’s above it all. Yes, the Eagles are getting crushed with injuries and other issues. Losing DeVonta Smith, Lane Johnson, Dallas Goedert, Landon Dickerson, Saquon Barkley, Marcus Epps, Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell and Jonathan Greenard is, by any definition, a deluge of losses.
But still, if you’re not going to use injuries as an excuse, don’t say this: “You’ll never hear me say a word about an injury.”
Uh, I’m pretty sure he just did. The coach also said he didn’t care who was on the field, one week after losing Hurts just long enough for backup QB Andy Dalton to screw up a 95-yard drive. If a coach doesn’t care who’s on the field, he’s either a liar or a moron. In this case, maybe both.
Hey, I blame myself for doing what I said I would never do again – namely, listen to Sirianni after an Eagles game. The fact that he was slinging more BS is no surprise. Rams coach Sean McVay gave the Eagles fans the finger after the game. Sirianni does it to his own fans when he opens his mouth after every game.
I said before the season that I expected the Birds to finish barely above .500 this season because of another new novice play-caller, more key defections on defense, an inevitable increase in injuries on an aging roster and a head coach who doesn’t appear to do anything particularly well.
What I never could have anticipated is that Sirianni (and his best coach, Vic Fangio) would ever get outscored, 31-0, in the second half of games against the Bears and Rams. I never could have imagined that Nick would hire another play-caller who never did it and is proving so far that maybe he can’t. Or that Sirianni would abandon basic strategic logic at key moments in close games.
The worst part is, we have seen this pattern before. If the Eagles keep spiraling downward, Sirianni has shown no knack for stanching the bloodshed. The head coach works without a tourniquet. Just look back to 2023 and 2025. He can’t fix what’s wrong.
I had a quick laugh thinking back a week when Sirianni was asked about facing a Rams team that had just lost a heartbreaker to the Broncos, an LA team missing its two future Hall of Fame defensive linemen (Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald) and facing an Eagles team it had lost to repeatedly in recent years.
The Eagles coach scoffed at the notion that a desperate team is harder to beat.
“We’re angry, too,” he said.
Well, I can speak only for myself and a fan base I have represented for close to four decades.
If we weren’t angry then, we are now.
A few other things. . . .
- As usual, I am incredulous about the media coverage of our teams. Other than my own blog post three days ago, I have found nothing anywhere questioning Dave Dombrowski’s status as director of baseball operations for the Phillies. Did any of these kind-hearted media souls notice that the bullpen offered few, if any, options in the playoffs? Did the use of three different starters as relievers – on short rest, no less – alarm anyone other than me?
- I’m not done with Dombrowski. If he couldn’t manage to build any kind of a bullpen after six seasons here, with a budget north of $300 million, what logical conclusion can be drawn other than that Dave did a lousy job? The Phillies haven’t won a playoff series in three years now. Is it really necessary to suffer another postseason meltdown before the has-been executive gets the same treatment he’s about to give interim manager Don Mattingly?
- Did it raise concerns in anyone else that DeVonta Smith was already out with an injury three games into his first season as the Eagles’ No. 1 receiver? Let me repeat what I have said many times since A.J. Brown was sent packing to New England. Smith is a wonderful No. 2 pass-catcher. He is too small and vulnerable as a No. 1. And if you’re expecting Dontayvion Wicks to adopt the role, well, sorry. He’s no A.J. Brown. No one is.
- As someone who has battled his own personal demons over the years, I have nothing but sympathy for the struggles of great Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson. The problem is, he’s part of a team that has proven it cannot consistently win without him. Bowing out the morning of a game is helpful to no one. This is a delicate situation, to be sure, but the Eagles will need much better clarity on how available Johnson will be for the rest of what figures to be his final season.
- I saved the best for last. Hey, I have to say something positive, no? That 18-yard touchdown catch by Darius Cooper over (and through) the outstretched arms of cornerback Quentin Lake was, by any measure, spectacular. Cooper has three TD catches in the past two games. People who see him in practice say he has an uncanny skill for improbable plays like that. More, please. A lot more.