Rich Kotite coached the last Eagles team to collapse this badly. Nick Sirianni should note the similarities.

Inside the house of the last Eagles coach who oversaw a collapse such as this, the landline phone rang three times before Rich Kotite’s wife, Elizabeth, answered.

“Who’s calling?”

“I’m a sports columnist with The Philadelphia Inquirer.”

“Oh, my goodness. So you want to talk to him about the Eagles?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was silence for five seconds.

“Would that be OK, ma’am?”

“Hold on a minute.”

There was silence for 10 seconds.

“Hi,” she said, “he’s not available.”

And she hung up.

Which was worse? It’s the question that the 2023-24 Eagles are in danger of raising. Which Chernobyl moment, which meltdown of a promising pro football season in Philadelphia, was worse? This team is making a run at the title: defending NFC champions, a 10-1 start, an acid cascade of five losses over the season’s final six games, Nick Sirianni’s job status up in the air, a feeling of despair and resignation hovering over Monday’s wild-card game in Tampa against the Buccaneers.

But those 1994 Eagles, Kotite’s Eagles, were the standard for a long time — the NFL equivalent of the ’64 Phillies, just 30 years later. They weren’t expected to contend for a Super Bowl, but they won seven of their first nine games to challenge the Cowboys for the NFC East crown. They were rolling until they weren’t, until they lost their last seven games, and Jeffrey Lurie, seven months after he had bought the franchise, fired Kotite.

That’s the fascinating comparison here: the circumstances that led Lurie to change coaches then and … well, no one outside One NovaCare Way really knows what he’s going to do now, do they? He offered that strange smile and a head-shake no-comment after descending an elevator at MetLife Stadium last Sunday, after the Eagles’ embarrassing loss to the Giants, then enteredthe locker room without a word. There’s mystery to Sirianni’s fate now. There wasn’t much, if any, to Kotite’s. Lurie was a new owner — new to the city, new to the league. He wanted to make his mark and bring in his own guy. Going into that ‘94 season, it might have taken a 16-0 regular season and a 77-0 victory in Super Bowl XXIX for Kotite to stay.

» READ MORE: The Eagles’ veterans and culture were supposed to save them from collapse. So much for that.

In Week 4, the Eagles came as close as they could, walloping the 49ers, 40-8, at Candlestick Park. (The next day’s memorable Philadelphia Daily News back page: 40-8ERS.) That Niners team went on to win the Super Bowl. The Eagles edged the Cardinals, 17-7, at Veterans Stadium on Nov. 6 to improve to 7-2. They didn’t win again.

The following week, the Cleveland Browns — on their way to an 11-5 season, with Bill Belichick as their head coach and Nick Saban as their defensive coordinator — routed them at the Vet, 26-7. The first stone of the landslide had tumbled down the mountain, and the similarities between that losing streak and the Eagles’ recent freefall are pretty striking.

Just as Sirianni, and perhaps the decision-makers above him, precipitated a weeks-long controversy with the decision to demote defensive coordinator Sean Desai, Kotite allowed the possibility that he might bench his starting quarterback, Randall Cunningham, to overwhelm every other narrative or consideration.

Would he replace Randall with Bubby Brister? Kotite let the question hang there from week to week. And just as the Eagles defense has worsened ever since Matt Patricia took control of it, Cunningham’s play degraded until at last, after an awful performance in a loss to the Steelers in Week 15 (he went 9-for-27 for 59 yards and threw two interceptions), he took a seat for Brister.

Not that it mattered. The destruction ended in Cincinnati, with a 36-33 loss to a Bengals team that finished 3-13 — an unacceptable outcome to an inferior opponent, as if the ‘94 team were setting the template for the ‘23 Eagles. Three days later, Lurie held a press conference.

Kotite and Sirianni are different men, different coaches, with different track records with the Eagles.

Inheriting a talent-loaded team from Buddy Ryan, Kotite won one playoff game in four seasons. Over time, he transformed into a walking, talking punch line for the Eagles’ steady regression and his powerlessness to stop it. Nothing symbolized his ineptitude better than his confusion, during a loss to the Cowboys, over whether to kick an extra point or try a two-point conversion because rain had smeared his play-call sheet.

He is 81 now and lives near Myrtle Beach, S.C. That bumbling image of him — reinforced by his 4-28 record during the 1995 and ‘96 seasons with the Jets — lingers, and if he’s still bitter over his treatment here and in New York, it’s no wonder he declined to come to the phone the other day.

Sirianni’s tenure already has been more successful than Kotite’s. The Eagles won just four games the season before he arrived; they haven’t missed the playoffs since and nearly won a Super Bowl. He has earned a measure of credibility and trust that Kotite never did. Still, Lurie’s explanation for firing Kotite ought to give pause to anyone who thinks Sirianni’s job is secure, or should be.

» READ MORE: Bill Belichick was more than the best coach in NFL history. He was the Eagles’ model and greatest rival.

“I think the direction of the ballclub over the last half of the season has been disturbing,” Lurie said at the time. “Let me tell you something: Oh-and-seven is a wake-up call for all of us. To me, it was a big letdown, and nobody’s job is secure. No player’s job is secure. There will be changes. …

“I don’t think we played to our potential. I don’t think we exhibited the ability to take it to the next level. I think, in fact, we dropped a level. Let’s face reality. That’s not a pleasant situation to be in.”

This one hasn’t been one for Nick Sirianni, either. Can he understand how Rich Kotite felt? Can he understand how Rich Kotite feels? With the wrong outcome Monday in Tampa, he may find out.