At a crossroads, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni turned to Jay Wright, Dawn Staley, and others for advice

Almost exactly a year ago, Jay Wright’s Labor Day weekend was interrupted by a text message from Nick Sirianni.

Got a minute?

The two Philadelphia coaches, current and former, have developed a strong enough relationship to justify such a request. Sirianni’s habit of seeking other coaches’ input predates his tenure as Eagles coach but has remained a constant in the last few years in a new network of potential sounding boards.

So before long, the two were on the phone, with Sirianni sneaking away from his family vacation a week before the regular season to bounce an idea off the former Villanova men’s basketball coach.

“I would call him a lifetime learner,” Wright told The Inquirer. “He’s just always digging and analyzing and reading and trying to find answers. I love that about him. He’s just always trying to get better. And I’m the same way; even though I’m not coaching, I still love talking to coaches.”

Once the dust settled on the Eagles’ collapse last season, the process of diagnosing what went wrong and addressing what might go wrong again led to an offseason of introspection for Sirianni.

He asked Dawn Staley, the South Carolina women’s basketball coach and Philadelphia legend, to visit with the coaching staff and the team’s leadership council midway through the offseason and sought advice from another Hall of Fame basketball coach, Rick Pitino, who now coaches at St. John’s. Sirianni had his former Mount Union football coach Larry Kehres, one of his most prominent mentors, in for a visit at the NovaCare Complex as well.

As a North Philadelphia native and an Eagles fan, Staley was quick to accept the invitation from Sirianni.

“I mean, I’m from Philly,” Staley said. “I want to be in the room with the Eagles.”

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Wright and Staley have experienced plenty of highs during their coaching careers. They also have experienced the type of scrutiny that can feel unique to Philadelphia after a coach’s team fails to reach expectations or regresses the way the Eagles did in 2023.

Speaking with The Inquirer in the lead-up to this Eagles season, both acknowledged that even their most difficult moments may not compare to what Sirianni faces going into this year.

“I just think it’s really, honestly, a lonely place for him,” Staley said. “Because only he feels it. When it’s all said and done, he’s the one at the top, and he feels it. ... There’s pressure to be Nick. But he wouldn’t have taken the job if he didn’t know what that pressure was.”

Wright added: “The scrutiny that he’s under in Philadelphia — I know Villanova fans are passionate, but there’s nothing like being the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. It is a legendary position and it comes with a lot of scrutiny. And I think he handles it really well.”

Staley entered the NovaCare Complex with the type of preconceived notions that come naturally to an outside observer of the Eagles’ 2023 season.

She saw the heated sideline discussions, at first between Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown and eventually Sirianni and several players while the team was still winning. She saw what came after as well, as the Eagles lost six of their final seven games and finished their season with a blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

It was only natural for her to come in with her own idea of what unfolded and the characters at play, but she left with a different perspective.

“I learned, just like any program or any franchise, there are inner workings of people, cliques on the team, huge personalities, and how they can work for or against you and what you’re trying to accomplish,” said Staley, who began her coaching career at Temple, from 2000 to 2008, and has since built a juggernaut at South Carolina, with three national championships, including with a 38-0 record this past season.

“I’ve seen it all before. I’ve been coaching for 24 years. I’ve had great talent, I’ve had subpar talent, but we’ve always found a way to be successful,” Staley said.

Staley’s biggest about-face came after a conversation with Brown, the Eagles wide receiver.

“If you’re watching him at home, you’re like, ‘This guy. What’s he talking about now?’” Staley said. “He just wants to win. When I’m in the room with him, I’m like, ‘[Crap], this guy just wants to win.’ He just has an incredible competitive nature, and sometimes it comes out, from the outside looking in, like, wrong. Like, demonstrative ... but he would probably be one of my favorite teammates.”

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Brown called the meeting with Staley “a session to the soul” when describing the residual value of her time with the team.

Staley’s guidance aside, the meeting served as a way for the group of players who were there to see a different side of Sirianni from the one they had grown accustomed to.

“Ultimately, it was a session for us, but it was a session for him, too,” Brown said. “What I learned from him and about him in that session is that he’s willing to learn. And that speaks volumes about a person, you’re the head coach but you’re still willing to learn. Because that’s the only way you’re going to grow. We don’t really get to see that, but he was there asking questions and was very curious, just like we were. I’ve got much respect for him for that.”

Staley described Sirianni as a “player’s coach” after her meeting with him and his coaching staff because of his tendency to seek out a range of opinions from members of the Eagles roster before making decisions.

There’s a balance to that, though, especially going into a year with perceived pressure externally and internally and Sirianni’s job likely hinging on the results of this season. Staley experienced similar crossroads early in her career and said it isn’t hard for a coach to identify when things need to change.

“Nick’s had success early in his tenure as a coach, and then when you’re faced with a disappointing season, you really know why,” Staley said. “When you’ve felt success, and then you have one of those seasons where things don’t feel right, look right, sound right, you know you have to address some things.

“For me, we had to get rid of some players that weren’t like-minded. It forces you to get back to the core of who you are as a coach, what your principles are, and then you have to apply them. Sometimes you have to apply them very loudly.

“I think for Nick, he just has to get comfortable with doing it his way — win, lose, or draw. You have to do it your way and take what comes with it.”

Watching Sirianni embark on an offseason of self-reflection and overhaul, Wright thought about the time he had to do the same.

Wright found success early at Villanova, similar to Sirianni, and had a string of NCAA Tournament berths before a Final Four appearance in 2009, his eighth season. That success came with a new world of recruiting, something he now attributes to a culture shift at the school that eventually needed a reversal: His roster became weighted more heavily with one-and-done recruits rather than developmental players who could grow into leaders.

By 2012, Wright realized that the team’s culture was going in the wrong direction and changed the structure of his coaching staff and his approach in recruiting to address it, something he said he has discussed with Sirianni.

“As coaches, we have to look at ourselves first,” Wright said. “Whatever the results are, we have to look at ourselves and see where we were responsible. We’ve got to be willing to adjust. And that was a time for me to do that.

“And [Sirianni’s] always analyzing. That’s what we talk about. He’s always analyzing his job and what he can do better. And he’s really honest with himself, which I think is really important for a coach.”

Wright also has been connected with Howie Roseman for years and met Doug Pederson through the general manager, similar to his initial meeting with Sirianni. Wright said he has noticed how young Eagles often reference the mentorship they get from veterans.

It’s something he has messaged Sirianni about as an encouraging sign of the dynamic in the building. Wright also acknowledged the stakes that come with coaching a roster as talented as the Eagles’ and the challenges that come along with lofty expectations each year.

“They always put themselves in position to play for championships, and it’s not what fans want to hear, but it’s hard to do,” Wright said. “No one wants to hear that, but sometimes you can hear it from another coach, like, this stuff is not easy. Fans think it is, people think it is, but it’s not.

“And it’s not supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be clean all the time; it’s how you handle all those challenges, all those failures. That’s what coaching is, and I think Nick’s great at that. I think he really works at that.

“Now, he’s got to go through the handling of all the challenges that come with that. And that’s what he’s doing now, he’s handling it. He takes the heat, he is going to work, and doesn’t make excuses. That’s all you can do. You have to prove yourself again, every year.”

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It’s not easy for Wright, the most decorated coach in Philadelphia college basketball history, with two national championships and two other Final Four appearances, to know what it’s truly like being under the microscope the way Sirianni is entering this season.

He doesn’t think Sirianni should spend too much time dwelling on the perception, though.

“Your job is not for them to love you,” Wright said. “Your job is to get the team the best that they can be. And I tell him Philadelphia fans will respect that. They may not like it all the time, but they’ll respect it.

“This is not a place to coach for any of us if you want to be idolized and just loved. It’s a unique place, but it’s the best place to coach in the world, I think. And I think he thinks so, too.”

Sirianni’s reading list this offseason included a book written by the father of one of his players.

Britain Covey insists that he didn’t give his coach a copy of the best-selling leadership book Trust and Inspire, written by his father, Stephen M. R. Covey, but Sirianni has one nonetheless. It’s one of a few books the coach has paged through this offseason and another part of the offseason of self-evaluation that led to some noteworthy changes.

As first reported by ESPN in August, Sirianni addressed the way last season ended, pinning it on himself during a spring meeting with the entire team and several key figures within the organization, including Roseman.

Sirianni said doing so was about a reaffirmed priority to set an example for his players to follow.

“The only way to get better is to really look through the things that you felt like you messed up and get better at them, right?” Sirianni said. “It starts with the humility to say, ‘I messed this up. I need to be better at this.’”

Since the apology, Sirianni has made some tweaks to his demeanor and his general approach with the team. Several assistant coaches have said the typically hotheaded coach was noticeably calmer during the summer, with fewer outbursts during practices and in the meeting rooms.

His players have noticed meaningful changes, too.

“You can tell he’s been very introspective in trying to change things,” Britain Covey said Sunday. “I don’t think there was much he needed to change — we all need to change things — but I would say just the way he approaches meetings and delegation of certain things is different this year. He’s delegated more time to certain coaches to speak, and then he picks and chooses his time to deliver his messages and coaching points.”

Brown added: “Ultimately, apologies are apologies; those are words. But we hold onto the actions, and he’s been pushing us and doing everything right. He’s doing the best job he can to get us prepared for the game and for a long season. Camp was different this year. He made it difficult, and he made it different for us. Hopefully soon we’ll reap harvest from that now.”

Sirianni also acknowledged his plan to tone down his tendency to berate sideline referees after developing a reputation for being fiery with officials during his career, which was influenced by Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie’s urging, according to The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane.

Each change traces back to the offseason analysis.

“We’re always a work in progress,” Sirianni said. “I’ll be a work in progress until I’m done coaching, until I die, I feel like, just because that’s just what I’ve always been taught, and you’re always striving to get better at everything that you do.”