Nick Sirianni: 15 things to know about the Eagles’ new head coach
He's the youngest coach hired by Jeffrey Lurie. His journey to the NFL got started by a chance meeting while he was a sophomore buried on the depth chart of a Division III team.
1. Nick Sirianni, 39, grew up in Jamestown, N.Y., some 70 miles south of Buffalo, and was a wide receiver at Division III powerhouse Mount Union. Grew up a Bills fan.
2. Turns 40 on June 15, which makes him the youngest of the five head coaches hired by Jeffrey Lurie. Ray Rhodes was 44, Andy Reid 41, Chip Kelly 50, and Doug Pederson 48. (Pat Shurmur was 50 when he coached the final game in 2015 after Kelly was fired.)
3. He and his wife Brett have three children: sons Jacob and Miles; daughter Taylor.
4. Sirianni caught three touchdown passes in a 2003 Division III semifinal victory for Mount Union. He had never lost a game in college until the Purple Raiders were beaten by St. John’s (Minn.) the following week in the championship to end Mount Union’s 55-game winning streak, a college football record that still stands.
5. Other NFL notables from Mount Union include Dom Capers, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, and Bill Davis, who coached Eagles’ linebackers under Dick Vermeil from 1976-78 and was the club’s VP of player personnel during the Buddy Ryan era 10 years later.
6. Started coaching at Mount Union after a year playing for the Canton Legends of the Alliance Indoor Football League. Spent three seasons at Indiana University of Pa. before getting into the pros in 2009.
7. Sirianni was a sophomore in college when he just happened to run into Todd Haley while working out at a YMCA in upstate New York, according to the Buffalo News. Sirianni was home on break and Haley, who was the Bears’ wide receivers coach at the time, was vacationing in nearby Chautauqua Lake.
“I think the world of Nick. I think he is a brilliant offensive mind. He is a tireless worker. He pays attention to detail. He has a dynamic coaching personality. I think he is going to be a great head coach in this league sooner rather than later. It is hard for me to have a higher opinion of Nick than I already do.”
8. Nearly 10 years later, Haley was the head coach of the Chiefs and gave Sirianni his first NFL job as quality control coach for the Chiefs.
9. He spent four seasons in Kansas City (but left before Andy Reid arrived in 2013), five with the Chargers (where he first worked with Frank Reich) and the last three seasons as Reich’s offensive coordinator for the Colts.
10. “When I got here [in 2018],” Reich said in October, “the first thing I said to [general manager] Chris Ballard was, ‘There is one guy we have to get on this staff, and that is Nick Sirianni.’ Thankfully, [general manager] Tom Telesco and the Chargers organization allowed Nick to take our coordinator position. I was grateful for that.”
11. Had three different primary starting quarterbacks in his three seasons coordinating the offense in Indy: Andrew Luck (2018), Jacoby Brissett (2019) and Philip Rivers (2020).
12. “As coaches, what offensive scheme do you run? It’s the one that fits your players the best, not the one that you like best,” he told the Colts’ website. “Figure out the type of players you have, their strengths, their weaknesses. Maximize their strengths. Try to hide their weaknesses.”
13. Colts rookie running back Jonathan Taylor (Salem H.S.) ran for 1,169 yards and set the team single-game record with 253 yards in Week 17 against Jacksonville.
14. His brother, Mike Sirianni, is 156-36 as the head coach of Washington & Jefferson, a Division III school outside of Pittsburgh.
15. Sirianni’s father and another brother also have been head coaches in high school or college, but Nick had always been an assistant. Until now. “I’m kind of the outcast of the family,” he joked to the San Diego Union Tribune in 2016. “I’ve got to catch up to that.”