Nick Sirianni takes blame for Eagles’ struggles on offense and the pick-six

Nick Sirianni erased at least one play off his call sheet on Monday.

The morning after the Eagles coach watched his team stumble through a surprising 20-10 loss to the New Orleans Saints, Sirianni took ownership for his role in both the listless offensive showing and the pick-six that thwarted a late comeback effort.

The decisive play came with roughly five minutes left in the fourth quarter when backup quarterback Gardner Minshew threw an ill-advised pass to receiver A.J. Brown. Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore was sitting on the pass and jumped the route to give the Saints the 10-point lead they maintained for the rest of the game.

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Brown said after the game he unsuccessfully tried alerting Minshew that Lattimore, who was originally up at the line of scrimmage to feign press coverage, had backed off the line and called out Brown’s route. Sirianni said the play call was tipped by the formation the offense was in, accepting ownership for the mistake.

“I’ll take responsibility for the interception,” Sirianni said. “We came back to a play that we had run earlier in the game and they recognized it and they made a play off of it. We gave them a recognizable formation and they made a play off of it, and we put them in a tough spot right there.”

The formation in question was a four-by-one set with Brown isolated on the weak side. Miles Sanders motioned out of the backfield to the strong side and seemingly tipped off Lattimore, a four-time Pro Bowler, and former All-Pro safety Tyrann Mathieu.

“That’s a very recognizable formation,” Sirianni said. “A good corner made a play, with a smart safety on the other side ... they recognized it. [Saints coach] Dennis Allen is a good coach, they recognized it and they made an adjustment and they made a play.”

Brown received some criticism about his effort on the route, but the receiver explained in a now-deleted tweet that the Saints’ coverage should have taken him out of Minshew’s progression.

“I’ll never question a guy’s effort,” Sirianni said. “A.J. gives it up for his teammates all the time, every time, so I’m never going to question — this is not a team where I’ll ever question our effort. I know how hard these guys go for each other and how hard they go because they’re prideful guys.”

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Sirianni said he and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen reviewed film of the play Monday and agreed their tendency to target Brown on a quick route out of that formation is too predictable.

“We said to each other that this is too recognizable of a formation to come back to,” Sirianni said. “If we do come back to that, a recognizable formation like that, we need to do something else potentially off of it. That’s what we said to ourselves, we said ‘This is on us.’”