Nick Sirianni talks early Eagles failures, plan to keep Jason Kelce in colorful Pat McAfee interview

Sirianni also played rock, paper, scissors against himself and talked about being hit by a bouquet of flowers.

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni (right) speaks with Pat McAffee on "The Pat McAfee Show" Wednesday.Read moreThe Pat McAfee Show

Updated Oct. 5, 2022, 1:47 p.m. ET

Published Oct. 5, 2022, 10:59 a.m. ET

Nick Sirianni and the Eagles might be flying high at 4-0, but things weren’t always so rosy for him in Philadelphia.

Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show Wednesday, Sirianni owned up to how poor his Eagles news conference debut and talked about getting booed by fans during a 2021 preseason game against the New England Patriots.

“We’re getting our asses kicked in this preseason game — Belichick is taking it to us. It’s halftime, and we’re getting booed,” Sirianni said. “So the expectation may have been this was a rebuilding year, but the people in Philadelphia let me know very quickly in my first year there’s no rebuild here.”

“I got a damn flower thrown at me! We loss to the Chargers, boom! Flower chucked down!” Sirianni added, referring to an incident that occurred after a Week 9 loss to Los Angeles last season at Lincoln Financial Field. He had been widely mocked for making a flower analogy during one of his early Eagles press conferences.

Sirianni, appearing in a hoodie with the phrase “Dawg mentality,” got to explain exactly what his widely used phrase actually means, to a soundtrack of barking cohosts led by McAfee.

“What dawg mentality really is — to be in the moment that you’re in right now, and not worry about what happened in the past, not worry about what’s going to happen in the future,” Sirianni said. “It’s all about our process and about being here today to make sure we’re about to go 1-0 this week. That’s it.”

One dawg Sirianni couldn’t praise enough is center Jason Kelce, whom he enticed to return with two kegs of beer. Sirianni said he wants Kelce with the Eagles as long as he’s the head coach, and might have a creative way to keep his star center happy.

“Because he is so nimble, I probably got to get him a couple of carries,” Sirianni said. “[Offensive coordinator Shane] Steichen and I got to get him in the backfield, report as eligible, and then give him a couple of carries. Maybe a screen, maybe a dive … we’re going to have to do something.”

Since Sirianni was hired as the Eagles’ coach in 2021, producer Ty Schmit has offered an impersonation of the sometimes-eccentric Birds coach on McAfee’s show, complete with a thick Delco accent good enough to fool the NFL Network’s Colleen Wolfe, a Philadelphia native.

Not surprisingly, Schmit trotted his Sirianni impersonation — McAfee calls it an “homage” — out on Wednesday to challenge the Birds coach in a game of Rock paper scissors.

In addition to hosting his lucrative YouTube show (in December he signed a four-year, $120 million deal with FanDuel), McAfee also joined ESPN’s popular college football pregame show College GameDay this season as an analyst. He also hosts his own college football version of the “Manningcast” on ESPN2 that’s produced by Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions.

Manning’s relationship with McAfee dates back to their time together with the Indianapolis Colts, where McAfee spent eight seasons as a punter and went to two Pro Bowls before retiring after the 2016 season with two years and almost $6 million remaining on his contract.