Nick Sirianni’s finest hour: Without Jalen Hurts, the coach leads the depleted Eagles to an NFC East title over the Cowboys
His backup QBs combined for three touchdown passes and his defense played with discipline and composure after a collapse and (another) embarrassing postgame incident at Washington the week before.
The Eagles had every excuse to lose Sunday.
They were playing their archrivals, the Cowboys, for the second time this season. The Cowboys were out of playoff contention but they had won four of five games, including a win at Washington, the site of the Eagles’ latest disaster, and they were playing with abandon, visiting a team haunted by collapses both distant and recent.
The week before, the Birds blew a 14-point lead at Washington, where they lost quarterback Jalen Hurts to a concussion that lingered through Sunday, Hurts’ first missed game of the season. Worse, the Eagles’ top-ranked defense had lost its composure, and the game, at Washington. Finally, on Sunday, not only was the offense’s quarterback absent, so was the defense’s quarterback: Middle linebacker Nakobe Dean missed Sunday’s game due to an abdominal strain.
They had every excuse to lose. They didn’t lose. Nick Sirianni wouldn’t have it.
Several players said afterward that Sirianni this past week reiterated this axiom:
“You can’t be great without the greatness of others.”
It’s that sort of saying that has been the hallmark of Sirianni’s astounding success. He’s 47-20 in the regular season, has the best winning percentage among active coaches, and secured a fourth straight playoff appearance Sunday.
From Monday to Sunday, no one in the Eagles Nation was greater than Sirianni.
» READ MORE: The Eagles are great with Jalen Hurts. They showed against the Cowboys they might be good enough without him.
In a 13-win campaign that saw the Birds clinch the NFC East with a week left, it was, in many ways, Sirianni’s finest hour of the season.
“Amazing,” said tackle Jordan Mailata. “In many ways, I think that was our best complementary football of the season.”
It was a ticklish spot for Sirianni, who’s had a hell of a season. He’d been questioned after a 2-2 start, which followed a 1-5 collapse in 2023 and a blowout loss in the playoffs. He’d been pilloried after Game 5, when he taunted Eagles fans after a home win. Game 5 was the start of a franchise-record 10-game winning streak, in which a more composed, mature Sirianni guided the team to blowout wins in Cincinnati and Dallas as well as decisive victories over the Commanders, Rams, Ravens, and Steelers. A pass-first coach, Sirianni had leaned on Saquon Barkley, who, in the fourth quarter, became the ninth player to eclipse 2,000 rushing yards in a season; at 2,005, he passed O.J. Simpson’s best season, in 1973 with the Bills, but remains 100 yards behind Eric Dickerson’s 1984 record, set with the Rams.
Sirianni’s next big decision: Will he let Barkley play in a probably meaningless finale against the Giants next week?
“We’ll see.”
“If it’s in God’s plan,” Barkley said, “then it is. I didn’t come here just to rush for 2,000 or break a record. It’s up to Nick.”
It’s a nice decision to have to make, especially considering the more pressing problems he dealt with this past week and the weight carried by Sunday’s game against the Cowboys.
Last week’s messy loss, combined with Hurts’ injury, added to a postgame dustup with former Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, put the focus on Sirianni again. He’d been a Coach of the Year candidate for a month. He’d seemingly earned a contract extension; his expires after next season.
But a loss to the Cowboys and a win by the Commanders on Sunday night would have put the division title in jeopardy, and, perhaps, Sirianni’s future.
Sirianni proved equal to the task.
“We had a great atmosphere, you know?” cornerback Quinyon Mitchell said. “Coach came in and said, ‘We have to look ourselves in the mirror. Clean up some mistakes.’ So, in practice, we honed in. This week was executed, mentally, really well.”
Sirianni prepared backup quarterback Kenny Pickett, whose style of play is entirely opposite to that Hurts’.
He prepared third-string rookie Tanner McKee, who threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to A.J. Brown for a dagger late in the third quarter, then added a 25-yarder to DeVonta Smith in the fourth.
He controlled Jalen Carter, who led the league with four unnecessary roughness penalties, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who was ejected at Washington for two unsportsmanlike conduct fouls. Carter’s disappearance and Gardner-Johnson’s absence led to 22 fourth-quarter points in the Commanders’ comeback win.
Carter was outstanding on Sunday.
Gardner-Johnson? Amazing. Two interceptions. A pick-six on the first Commanders’ possession. With Hurts out of action, he even broke down the pregame huddle.
“He responded awesome,” Sirianni said, and said it was a manifestation of Sirianni’s “dog mentality” philosophy: “Learning from your mistakes, but putting them in the past, and being able to focus completely on where you’re at right now. That won’t only serve him well in football, it will serve him well in life.”
It served Sirianni well on Sunday. Really, he was never better.
He featured Smith, knowing the Cowboys would sell out to stop Brown. Smith had six catches for 120 yards and two touchdowns. Brown had three catches for 36 yards and a score.
Nothing mattered more than preparing Pickett.
Pickett recognized a six-man blitz and hit Smith for a 22-yard touchdown and a 14-7 lead. He was part of four short-yardage Tush Pushes, three of which worked, the fourth for a touchdown as the first half expired with the Eagles leading, 24-7. He completed 10 of 15 passes for 143 yards and the touchdown before a hit from Micah Parsons aggravated a rib injury Pickett suffered at Washington and knocked him from the game.
“It’s very much a college-team feel,” Pickett said afterward. “Everyone cares about each other. That’s incredibly special.”
With Pickett hobbled and with McKee an unknown entity, Sirianni knew the Birds would have to ride Barkley. They did: They gave the ball to Barkley on six of the first seven plays of the third quarter, and he gained 30 yards as the Eagles made four first downs, used almost seven minutes, and came away with a 26-yard field goal for a 20-point lead. Barkley finished with 167 yards, the fifth-highest rushing total of his career, the third-highest total of this season, and his 11th 100-yard rushing game this season. He did it on 31 rushes, which tied for the third-highest total of his career.
This was not the Cowboys team that began the season as a playoff favorite. It lacked quarterback Dak Prescott, defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, receiver CeeDee Lamb, guard Zack Martin, and cornerback Trevon Diggs, five of Dallas’ six best players, excepting Parsons. Also, Mike McCarthy remains their coach.
So no, the Cowboys weren’t good. But, since Sirianni was hired in 2021, the Eagles have lost to plenty of teams that weren’t good. Occasionally, Sirianni has been the problem.
On Sunday, he was the solution.