Nick Sirianni is at the doorstep of an Eagles dynasty with Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts and a dominant young defense

NEW ORLEANS — When all the confetti had fallen and the crowd had all gone home, Nick Sirianni sat on a blue TV crate and hung his weary head. He couldn’t find his family. He couldn’t believe his fate.

He had no phone. No bodyguard. It was just him, alone, quiet, with his thoughts.

A year before, he’d had to convince Jeffrey Lurie that he was still the right man to lead the Eagles.

On Sunday night, Sirianni led them to the second Super Bowl championship in franchise history.

He blew out Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22, in Super Bowl LIX, the same coach and the same team that beat Sirianni two years ago. Sirianni knows, with a 26-year-old quarterback as Super Bowl MVP, a young defense, a peerless GM, and a generous owner, there is no good reason he shouldn’t be coaching in this game again and again and again.

“Oh, yeah,” said Lurie as he prowled the Superdome field.

“Why not?” said third-year defensive tackle Jordan Davis, a cornerstone of the best D in the league. “I mean, now we know what it takes.”

It takes talent, and this is the most talented group the franchise has ever had, and they’re mostly young, unlike the 2017 team that promised more than it could deliver. On the Art Museum steps on a frigid February afternoon, Doug Pederson vowed to 1 million freezing, faithful Eagles fans that this sort of celebration would be “the new norm.”

He was right. He was just seven years premature. And, even though he won Super Bowl LII, it turned out that Pederson was the wrong coach. And it turned out that Nick Sirianni was the right coach. Improbably. Incredibly.

That’s right. That guy.

The guy who channeled Barney Fife in his historically awful introductory news conference in 2021. The guy who talked about Flower Power his first season, then had flowers thrown at him from the stands after a loss. The guy who taunted Eagles fans at home after Game 5 this season, then had to apologize for his arrogance.

» READ MORE: Champions again! Eagles topple and trounce the Chiefs 40-22 to capture a second Super Bowl title

That guy.

That guy’s a Super Bowl champion. That guy, whose deal expires this time next year, is going to get a contract extension worth as much as $20 million per season.

Lurie refused Sunday to discuss Sirianni’s future, but he gushed about his past and present.

“Nick epitomizes our culture — the resilience, the genuineness,” Lurie said.

Nobody else even interviewed Sirianni in 2021, and he’s made a slew of mistakes in his four seasons, but he stands atop the sporting world now. Does Lurie feel validated? Does he think Sirianni feels validated?

“Yes,” Lurie said, “and yes.”

Nick?

He’d hugged about 100 people and taken 17 pictures (one with Freddie Mitchell and Brian Westbrook) and done 11 official interviews and signed two autographs and was striding toward the tunnel to leave the field.

“Ah, I don’t really think that way,” he said.

Really?

Eagles fans pressed against the railing and celebrated him. He tipped his new Super Bowl champion hat to the crowd, then took it off and tossed it to a kid. Then a guy yelled out:

“Never a doubt!”

Sirianni looked back at me, smirked, and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, “‘Never a doubt.’”

No one has never not doubted Sirianni in Philly. They’ll never doubt him again.

They lost to the Chiefs by a field goal two years ago, but they won Sunday night by six field goals. They led by 24 at halftime. They looked utterly unbeatable against the best AFC team over the past decade.

Maybe they are unbeatable. They’ve won 16 of 17 games, including the most important one. Maybe they’re the NFC’s version of the Chiefs, who have been in five of the last six Super Bowls. Maybe this time it really is the “New Norm” for the Eagles.

As Davis said, why not? Why not three or four more Super Bowls this decade? Top to bottom, they’re built for it. Credit GM Howie Roseman some, or even credit Lurie, but neither one of them is in the locker room nor on the sideline. Sirianni is. They buy the groceries. He makes the meal.

The ingredients are fresh.

Quarterback Jalen Hurts is 26 and under contract for four more seasons. The league’s best running back, Saquon Barkley, is signed for two more years; on Sunday, he broke the single-season rushing record (playoffs included). There’s no real reason he can’t do it twice more. Why? Because three of the five offensive linemen are under contract for at least two more seasons, and because A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, the league’s best receiver tandem, can be Birds together through 2028. They each had a touchdown catch in Super Bowl LIX.

Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore is expected to stay in New Orleans and become the Saints head coach, but defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, now 66, doesn’t want to be a head coach again, God bless him.

Sunday night was a Vic Fangio fever dream.

The defense surrendered zero points until 34 seconds remained in the third quarter. Zero. There was a pick-6, and another interception set up Hurts’ touchdown pass to Brown. Second-year defensive tackle Jalen Carter, the team’s best defender, pressured Patrick Mahomes and forced a punt on the first possession, setting a tone. Davis had a sack. Rookie end Jalyx Hunt had a half-sack. Second-year edge rusher Nolan Smith pressured Mahomes and forced a punt on the Chiefs’ second possession. Rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean intercepted a pass and ran it back 38 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter. Second-year defensive tackle Moro Ojomo dropped Isiah Pacheco for a 2-yard loss. Rookie corner Quinyon Mitchell was too good for Mahomes to challenge.

The future is bright. Even kicker Jake Elliott has four more years left on his deal. He’d been inconsistent this season, but he made all eight kicks Sunday night. Flawless.

OK, the Eagles weren’t exactly flawless. It just felt that way.

» READ MORE: SIELSKI: he Eagles left no doubt in Super Bowl LIX: They’re the best Philly team of all time

On third-and-10 from the Chiefs’ 30 late in the first quarter, facing pressure from a blitz, Hurts floated a duck toward the right pylon, where Brown was covered by one player and it was intercepted. It was an aberration. Hurts hadn’t thrown an interception in nine games.

By halftime, the only player in midnight green who hadn’t mattered much was Barkley, the player who’d mattered most all season. The Chiefs forced Hurts to beat them. Barkley had 18 yards on his first nine rushes and finished with just 57 yards on 25 carries.

Hurts obliged the Chiefs. He was 17 for 22 with 221 yards and two touchdowns, with completions of 15, 20, 22, 22, 27, and 46 yards, the last one a touchdown to Smith that made it 34-0 late in the third quarter. He added 72 rushing yards on 11 runs, breaking his own Super Bowl record of 70 rushing yards by a quarterback, and he scored on a Tush Push to boot.

Easiest MVP vote in years ... because Sirianni wasn’t eligible. All he gets is a ring. He deserves it.

It’s been four long years, and it took a while for Sirianni to find his feet. If nothing else, he’s adept at self-examination and self-deprecation.

“The genuineness can create emotional ups and downs. That’s human,” Lurie explained. “I think everyone relates to that. Yet his attention to detail and his depth of thought ... sometimes people miss that leadership.”

» READ MORE: Cooper DeJean’s Super Bowl TD could get him a street named in his tiny Iowa hometown

After just seven games as a head coach in 2021, Sirianni surrendered play-calling to former OC Shane Steichen but remained the offense’s architect. After Steichen left for the Indianapolis head coaching job, Sirianni took a larger role with new OC Brian Johnson, whom he fired after last season. Moore signed on under the condition that Sirianni recuse himself from almost all offensive responsibilities.

It worked.

Sirianni left the defense to Fangio. He oversaw Moore’s game plans and play-calling but added little. But then, that’s what most of the best head coaches in history have done. They delegated.

But Sirianni played a crucial role in turning Hurts’ season around. From the start of the 2023 season through Game 4 of 2024, Hurts led the NFL in turnovers. Sirianni put Hurts in a “straitjacket” — Hurts’ words — leaned on Barkley, and trusted the defense. Hurts has turned the ball over four times in his 15 games since.

In games he’s both started and finished, the team is 14-0.

Credit that crazy coach.