Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni’s job security has been called into question after his team lost six of their final seven games this season, including a 32-9 blowout against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Monday night’s Wild Card Round matchup.
But center Jason Kelce and veteran defensive tackle Fletcher Cox came to his defense on Wednesday.
“I love Nick,” Kelce told reporters. “I think Nick’s a great coach, I really do. I think he’s a great head coach. Obviously, nobody was good enough this year. I wasn’t. None of the players. None of the coaches were good enough down the stretch. That’s the reality of this business, when you’re that bad it’s a collective thing. But I’ll always have faith in Nick Sirianni.”
Cox made the two strongest arguments for keeping Sirianni: He has a strong résumé—he’s 34-17 as a head coach, has never missed the playoffs and led the team to a Super Bowl berth last year—and he hasn’t seemed to lose the locker room despite the team’s impotent end to the season.
But Sirianni also has to own the team’s absolute collapse following a 10-1 start. His replacements last offseason for former offensive coordinator Shane Steichen and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon—who took head-coaching gigs with the Indianapolis Colts and Arizona Cardinals, respectively—were Brian Johnson and Sean Desai.
Neither panned out.
Offensively under Johnson, the Eagles became incredibly predictable by the end of the season, struggled to deal with blitzes, often started games sluggishly and saw quarterback Jalen Hurts regress significantly after being an MVP candidate in 2022.
He finished with 21 turnovers after only registering eight last season.
Sirianni was hired as an offensive guru, but it has to be a concern that he, Johnson and Hurts seemed to run out of answers by the end of the season, scoring fewer than 20 points in five of the last seven games they played.
