Eagles’ Nick Sirianni sticking with play-callers Brian Johnson and Matt Patricia heading into the NFL playoffs

Less than 24 hours after the Eagles’ 27-10 blowout loss to the New York Giants, which marked their fifth loss in their last six games, coach Nick Sirianni stood by his offensive and defensive play-callers.

Sirianni said Monday afternoon that he will not be changing play-calling duties on either side of the ball, continuing to stick with offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and senior defensive assistant-turned-play-caller Matt Patricia heading into the playoffs.

In his fourth game calling plays at the helm of the defense, Patricia saw his unit concede 24 points to the Giants in the first half with the NFC East crown technically still on the line. Through the first two quarters alone, the Giants amassed 272 yards of offense on 38 plays, going 3-for-5 on their red-zone trips and 3-for-7 on third down (42.9%).

Last week, edge rusher Haason Reddick acknowledged the challenge of acclimating to a new play-caller during the season and the changes that come with it. Patricia took over for defensive coordinator Sean Desai, who still holds his title and remains on staff, going into Week 15 against the Seattle Seahawks.

Since Patricia took over play-calling responsibilities, the Eagles defense is conceding more points per game (26.75) than it did under Desai (24.7). It’s also allowing slightly more yards of offense on average, going from 353.9 to 363.3 yards against per game. The last two games have been especially alarming, as the Eagles conceded a total of 721 yards of offense and 59 points in non-garbage time to the Giants and the Arizona Cardinals — teams with records far below .500 that had been eliminated from the playoffs.

However, Sirianni pushed back on the notion that the defense’s continued struggles are rooted in the play-caller change.

“You’ve got to understand, too, that we’re not completely changing to just Matt’s philosophy,” Sirianni said. “Matt’s also doing things to fit the defense that’s currently in place. So to me, that’s not what the issue is ...

“We’re just making some adjustments, some different things that we’re doing when we’re going through defense, and hey, has it been good enough these last couple of weeks? No, but we’re still working like crazy to get it better.”

» READ MORE: Fire Nick Sirianni and all his coaches after this Eagles humiliation against the Giants? OK.

Sirianni also denied that the defense’s shortcomings have to do with extensive communication issues in light of apparent confusion among defensive players on the field in recent weeks.

“When you’re not playing and coaching good enough, or to the standard on either side of the ball, there’s going to be many different things that point to that,” Sirianni said. “There’s going to be some things that they schemed us up on, right? There’s going to be some times where we missed a fit or we missed a play. There’s going to be times where we missed a tackle. There’s going to be times that we have a communication error.

“So, yeah, you’ll have some of those. And I think that’s common through any game. You try to limit those as much as you possibly can. I wouldn’t say a huge communication error thing. It hasn’t been good enough all the way around, as we all have seen.”

Meanwhile, in the first half of the Giants game, the Eagles failed to score in any capacity. Quarterback Jalen Hurts injured his middle finger on his throwing hand in the second quarter, and while he returned to action, Sirianni eventually opted to bench his franchise quarterback and a number of the Eagles starters on both sides of the ball.

» READ MORE: Eagles-Giants takeaways: Bucs’ Todd Bowles may be a nightmare matchup for Nick Sirianni and Brian Johnson

The Eagles seldom had answers for Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale’s blitz. (Martindale reportedly resigned on Monday.) According to Pro Football Focus, Hurts was pressured on 73.7% of his dropbacks, going 5-for-12 for 41 yards and an interception. Just as he did immediately after the game, Sirianni again took the blame Monday for the lack of solutions in the face of the blitz.

“Any time you don’t handle the things like that the way you should, that’s always going to start with me and putting them in positions to make plays, and so many different ways that you can handle the blitz,” Sirianni said. “There’s many different things that you can do. And the ones that we chose to do yesterday, they weren’t good enough and so that’s going to be on me.”

Going into their matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their wild-card game next Monday night, the Eagles are poised to face another blitz-heavy team under head coach Todd Bowles. The Buccaneers rank No. 3 in the league in blitz percentage (37.9%) behind the No. 2 Giants (42.2%), putting the pressure on Sirianni, Johnson, and the Eagles offense to iron out an improved approach this week.