Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts savor the Eagles beating the Chiefs, but the sweet taste shouldn’t last long

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After a victorious postgame interview, Jalen Hurts jogged toward the stands behind the Eagles’ bench and slapped the hands of traveling fans draped over the barricades.

A few moments earlier, Nick Sirianni basked in his team’s improbable comeback with those same Arrowhead Stadium aliens, while delivering a parting salvo to a few remaining Chiefs fans.

“See ya!” the Eagles coach said.

While Hurts’ gesture was uncharacteristic and Sirianni’s boast wasn’t, both suggested that Monday night’s 21-17 squeaker over Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and defending champion Kansas City in a rematch of Super Bowl LVII wasn’t just another regular-season win.

“You’re not going to sucker me into saying that,” Sirianni said. “This was a big game because it was our next one.”

But one cliché begets another: Actions speak louder. Earlier, as reporters awaited entry into the visitors’ locker room, Sirianni called out and roasted a Philadelphia-area reporter who had picked the Chiefs and in doing so cited their advantage at head coach and quarterback.

» READ MORE: Eagles come from behind and capitalize on Chiefs turnovers, winning 21-17 in a Super Bowl rematch

He shouted essentially that prediction and its explanation right back at the media member, who has created a talk radio identity with outlandish hot takes. Sirianni certainly knew he had some leeway with someone who profits from bad-faith arguments. But he sounded a bit like a bully, and this take wasn’t eccentric.

Reid and Mahomes are future Hall of Famers and two-time Super Bowl champs. Sirianni and Hurts may end up matching their credentials some day, but for now, they have just a November victory in head-to-head meetings on their resumé. And it wasn’t close to convincing.

“I was just teasing,” Sirianni later said on the podium.

Hurts, of course, would never toot his horn. And Sirianni regained his composure when asked about the 9-1 Eagles’ latest backdoor triumph.

“Shoot, I’d trade winning last year for this one,” Sirianni said of the 38-35 loss to the Chiefs in February. “But it feels good to get this one.”

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And, in truth, there was considerable merit in the comeback that saw the Eagles rally from a 10-point halftime deficit — just as the Chiefs did in the Super Bowl. Not only did they defeat the AFC’s top team on the road in difficult weather and crowd noise conditions, but also they did so largely because of adjustments that kept Kansas City from scoring points after halftime.

A red-zone turnover — the Chiefs’ second of the game — and multiple dropped passes, the most devastating by receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling in the end zone with just under two minutes left, and some dubious game-management decisions by Reid could be cited as second-half gifts to the Eagles.

But veteran cornerback Darius Slay was on the Eagles’ self-congratulatory side of the ledger.

“A win is a win. Ain’t no ‘ugly’ or ‘pretty,’” he said. “We’ve had a lot of ugly wins. That’s what it’s been the whole year. Everybody’s been expecting us to come out here and blow everybody out. This is the NFL. This is professional athletes. Some of the best in the world.

“They’re defending Super Bowl champions. Yeah, we expected it to be a grind.”

The Eagles, indeed, had every right to bask in the moment. But it should be short-lived. And there’s no reason to believe that Sirianni won’t take a red pen to the film and that locker room leaders like Jason Kelce won’t make something bigger out of finally beating the ex-Eagles coach, his brother, Travis, and seemingly the favorite to win the title as long as Mahomes is under center.

“We didn’t play great. I think that helps you,” the center said. “I’m really happy we got our first win [vs. Reid]. But there’s plenty of things I got to clean up, plenty of things we have to clean up offensively if we want to get to where we want to be at the end of the season.”

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Hurts and the offense had largely improved over the course of the first two months. They still lacked rhythm, partly because of the play-calling, but the quarterback had regained some of his 2022 form in recent weeks despite an ailing knee.

But the Eagles looked completely out of sync and ill-prepared to handle Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s pressures for stretches. During a five-series span in the middle of the game, the offense ran 17 plays for 18 yards.

Hurts was sacked four times on the second and third possessions, but even though first downs were hard to come by initially in the second half, the Eagles had figured out their protection problems.

“There were some miscommunication things that we knew we had to get better at,” Sirianni said. “We were behind the sticks. It was some things that we had to do coaches to help out putting the guys in positions to make plays. … They created some confusion. Spags does a great job with that.”

» READ MORE: ‘All that matters!’: DeVonta Smith’s explosive play sets up the Eagles’ comeback victory

Offensive coordinator Brian Johnson had some questionable decisions with the play sheet. But he found various ways to get the ball into running back D’Andre Swift’s hands and target receiver DeVonta Smith late with top weapon A.J. Brown neutralized and tight end Dallas Goedert sidelined.

On the key 41-yard pass to Smith that set up Hurts’ game-winning “Brotherly Shove” touchdown, Sirianni said the quarterback checked to the deep pass against single-man coverage.

“It ended up being the right call at the right moment,” the coach said.

Defensive coordinator Sean Desai, meanwhile, made the right call to allow the Chiefs to have theirs on the ground at the expense of Mahomes’ arm. Sure, he didn’t want to allow 121 rushing yards by the break.

But Kansas City was lulled into running on early downs in the second half, and Desai had tightened up the gaps. His coverages, meanwhile, which mostly negated Travis Kelce’s impact, forced Mahomes to throw to his often-unreliable receivers.

And Desai again was the antithesis of Jonathan Gannon, who often struggled to adjust in his two seasons as Eagles defensive coordinator.

The Eagles’ schemes and their play-callers on both sides may have second-guessers questioning the team’s postseason fortunes. And that’s fair. But the talent that general manager Howie Roseman has assembled and the character of the team led by Sirianni has compensated for the deficiencies through 10 games.

“I don’t think we played to our standard, nowhere near our standard,” Hurts said. “But I think the thing that you can’t quantify is the resilience that a team has, the ability to persevere and see through things and overcome things.

“And this team has that.”

Will it be enough in the long run? That’s a bigger-picture question the Eagles don’t need to answer now. Hurts just wanted to enjoy the win, exemplified by his jaunt to interact with the fans.

“There were a lot of them out there,” Hurts said. “I wanted to show them some love. We always travel well. I definitely appreciate it.”

But had he ever done that before?

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Neither had the Eagles beat Reid’s Chiefs — until Monday night.