Nick Sirianni Owns Up to Poor, Late-Game Decision Making in Loss to Jaguars

The Eagles' head coach made two mistakes in the dying seconds of his team's third straight loss, which was a heartbreaking 19-17 setback.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni made a couple of miscues against the Jacksonville Jaguars. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Nick Sirianni blew it. He knew it, too, and admitted it.

“I didn't make the right decision, and I lost us that game,” said the Eagles coach after his team lost for a third straight time, this time to the Jacksonville Jaguars, 19-17, in Week 5. “...The guys fought so hard, and then I didn't make the decision that I should have made at the end of the game, and I cost us that game, and I put that fully on me.”

He could have owned up to a pair of mistakes in the game’s dying seconds.

First, his decision not to let Jake Elliott kick the ball into the end zone after Elliott’s 48-yard field goal gave the Eagles a 17-16 lead with eight seconds left in the game. With no timeouts, the Jags would have needed one play to get into field goal range.

Ameer Abdullah took the short kick gift and raced 52 yards, allowing for one more play: a 57-yard field goal attempt by Cam Little, which he made as time expired.

Second, for his decision not to drain more of the game clock after the Eagles’ offense somehow showed a spark of life and made a first down at the Jaguars’ 34 with 25 seconds left, trailing 16-14.

The Eagles were already in Elliott’s field-goal range at that point. He's been hot so far this season, making two 50-plus-yard kicks in two attempts. Instead of running the ball once or twice, two passes were dialed up. The first was incomplete, stopping the clock. The second went to Makai Lemon, who ran an out pattern and got out of bounds after picking up seven yards, again stopping the clock.

Finally, the Eagles ran the ball. The play lost three yards, and the Jaguars called their final timeout, something they might have done if the Eagles had run on first or second down. That would have meant the Eagles could have run their field goal unit out to attempt the kick as the clock wound down to under five seconds. By not doing that, there was still time on the clock to do what Jacksonville did.

Two decisions that could haunt the Eagles for rest of season

“I'm prepared as a quarterback to not worry about those things,” quarterback Jalen Hurts told reporters when asked if he would have done anything differently in those final 25 seconds. “I'm honoring the play call, honoring the things that are coming in the game. When I'm up at night, yeah, I think about them. Should I have said something or should I have took a step back and said, ‘Wait?’ Ultimately, there's a commitment to that and going out there and executing. And this was one where it did not work in our favor.”

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts put the team in position in the waning moments of the fourth quarter, but it didn't matter in the end. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

But the decision not to kick off into the end zone was coaching negligence. There’s a time and place to trust your tacklers on kickoff coverage, but this wasn’t the time or place.

The Jags opened the game with a kickoff return for a touchdown, but it was called back on a holding penalty. Additionally, the Eagles were without more than half a dozen injured players, including one of their top special teams tacklers, Jeremiah Trotter Jr., who was ejected on the opening kickoff.

The players charged with tackling Abdullah, Kelee Ringo, Jonathan Jones, and Arnold Ebiketie had no chance.

“It sucks,” Elliott told reporters after the heartbreaking loss. “I mean, you come all this way, you think you're in the driver's seat to win a big game and now we're feeling pretty down.”

So, Sirianni stood before the players in the postgame locker room and let them know this loss was on him.

“I think it's so important for every person to take accountability, because that's the only way you get better,” said the coach. “You build trust that way. … just sick the way that went, and my decision went there."

These two decisions could haunt the Eagles for the remainder of the season and could ultimately lead to Sirianni getting fired if the season doesn’t end with a playoff game.