Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni Reveals Self-Affirmation for Playoffs: 'We'll Fight!'
EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - The Philadelphia Eagles are all out of flushes.
The collapse from 10-1 to an 11-6 regular-season record is already historic, the first time that kind of freefall has happened in the NFL since the 1986 New York Jets raced out to 10-1 before finishing with five consecutive losses in what was then a 16-game schedule.
Those Jets rebounded to win a Wild Card game against Kansas City before bowing out in the Divisional against Cleveland.
Similarly, the Eagles have a real opportunity to beat a 9-8 Tampa Bay team on Monday night in the finale of Wild Card weekend before the real competition kicks in next round.
That said, after losing to Seattle with a backup quarterback as well as Arizona and the New York Giants over the final month of the season, nothing seems assured for a Philadelphia organization that raced from hubris to shell-shocked faster than Elon Musk’s latest innovation with Tesla.
After Sunday’s disappointing effort against the Giants in a 27-10 setback, embattled head coach Nick Sirianni embraced the idea of 0-0 and discarding the recent waste.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni was practicing self-affirmation after a difficult loss to the Giants.
John McMullen/Eagles Today
“Obviously, we're all going to be pissed off after this game,” Sirianni said after arguably the worst 60 minutes of football the Eagles have played since he became the head coach. “You still—yes, you have to flush it. Yes, you have to move on.
“You have to flush this last month.”
Sounds good but for those who endured it, perhaps easier said than done.
“We have a lot to fix; we have a lot to do better,” Pro Bowl center Jason Kelce admitted. “This is our worst stretch of football since Nick has been here and it is very, very frustrating.”
Even the endlessly optimistic Brandon Graham had to admit the negativity assembling at the gates of the NovaCare Complex.
“There’s a lot of doubting,” the veteran assessed.
The good news – if there is any – is that the doubters can’t write the end of this story.
“Like I said, a lot of teams want to be in our position,” Sirianni said. “Everybody's going 0-0 to start this thing off. Flush this game, but also learn from it just like you do every opportunity you get on the field.”
“That don’t matter,” Graham added when discussing those preparing eulogies. “It’s about how we handle what’s coming next. Right now, people [around the NFL] are going home and packing up their lockers. We’re still in this thing. We’ve got some life left. We’ve got some pride about us.”
Both Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts used the term “belief” but right now that faith seems manufactured to the point that Sirianni was practicing self-affirmation from the podium in the bowels of MetLife Stadium.
“I mean, none of us are quitters,” the coach said. “We all get up off the mat when we're down and we get up and we keep going. When you get hit in life, when you get hit in football, you’ve got two options: you can stay down, or you can get you can get up.
“I know this group is fighters, I know this group will get up. … that's the reason all these guys are in that locker room because they know how to freaking fight. The coaches know how to freaking fight. The players know how to freaking fight. The staff know how to freaking fight. So, we'll just get up and we'll fight again.”
