PHILADELPHIA — Eagles star wide receiver A.J. Brown said he didn’t know how long Nick Sirianni’s new multiyear contract ran, but that didn’t stop him from synching his future with that of his head coach.
“[Last week] I told him congrats, and I told him I’m done when he’s done,” Brown said.
Player after player who took to the podium on Tuesday welcomed the news of Sirianni’s extension, a group that included Brown, quarterback Jalen Hurts and left tackle Jordan Mailata.
That makes plenty of sense. Philadelphia is coming off a Super Bowl-winning campaign. Sirianni is 54-23 with the Eagles, including the postseason. His .701 win percentage is the fifth best by any coach in NFL history (minimum 75 games), per ESPN Research. He is the first head coach to earn four playoff appearances, two conference championships and a Super Bowl title in his first four seasons.
But it’s been a more turbulent ride than the final results suggest.
Sirianni was a relative unknown when team chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie tabbed him to take over in 2021 for Doug Pederson, who was the franchise’s only Super Bowl-winning coach at the time. The skepticism in the city grew exponentially when Sirianni struggled through his introductory news conference.
The Eagles started 2-5 during his first season at the helm, which Sirianni explained with a flower analogy (growth happening under the surface) that was widely ridiculed by a Philly fan base thin on patience.
Then there was the 1-6 finish to the 2023 season — a collapse fueled in part by the disconnect between Sirianni and Hurts and that led to questions about Sirianni’s job security.
There was a stretch of time when Hurts seemed to struggle to say anything positive publicly about Sirianni, but that changed following last season’s Week 5 bye, and things have appeared to be trending in a positive direction since, as the signal-caller’s recent comments showed.
“First and foremost, congratulations to him,” Hurts said. “Everything he’s been able to achieve and accomplish, he’s earned. And just to see his evolution and his growth from my perspective and playing quarterback for him his whole entire tenure here, it’s been a great experience, it’s been a great ride, it’s been a lot of learning for the both of us — and hopefully, we’re just getting started.”
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Talk of that evolution became a theme as Sirianni and the players reflected on his time at the helm.
“When I think of Nick Sirianni and the growth that he has shown, I look at my growth first but I also see coach’s growth,” Mailata said. “And I think about that time… when he talked about the flower, and now I just want to give him his flowers. He’s done a phenomenal job — a phenomenal job of building the culture of this locker room. And it’s no surprise that he got a multiyear contract.
“All the scrutiny he’s gotten, and to be able to come back every year and preach the message but also correct his mistakes and show accountability — he’s always me first, then you,” he added. “He means incredibly a lot to me but also this team, this franchise.”
In announcing the hiring of Sirianni in January 2021, Lurie called it “the culmination of a lot of thought that went into it, a lot of projection.” It was not just what Sirianni was in the moment, Lurie said, but what he could become.
Lurie knew he wasn’t hiring a finished product. Sirianni had never been a head coach in the NFL before. (And that is the same for the other four coaches — Ray Rhodes, Andy Reid, Chip Kelly and Pederson — whom Lurie has hired during his time running the team.)
But Lurie identified Sirianni as an “independent thinker” with a “football IQ off the charts.” Lurie saw someone who had an edge to him, and Lurie welcomed and encouraged it. That competitive fire has generally served Sirianni well, but it also has created unnecessary distractions, such as when he jawed with some home fans in Week 6 against the Cleveland Browns last season or when he had a tense exchange with former Eagles standout tight end Zach Ertz following a game against the Washington Commanders later in the campaign.
Sirianni has worked to harness that fire, keeping a cooler head on the sideline and doing most of his emoting out of public view.
Lurie believed Sirianni could build a staff and was amendable to welcoming in coaches outside his circle. Lurie saw “someone that had an unlimited work ethic and a desire to be great.”
Many of those qualities rose to the surface over time as some of the rough edges smoothed out, leading to a high level of success and a second contract that seemed like a long shot as recently as early last season.
“Everybody that is striving to reach the top of the mountain or whatever it is like we try to do every single year, adversity is going to be there regardless,” Sirianni said. “I really look at any adversity that I’ve ever been through in my life, whether it was my leg injury in 2001, whether it was my dad going through cancer, whether it was the collapse of our season at the end of the 2023 season and finishing 1-6.
“Every one of those things, whether it’s scrutiny from… [my] first press conference, I can look at the good in all those things and find good in all those things and how it’s shaped me to be who I am today and has made me better as a result of it. You never want to go through those things as you go through them, but if you allow it to shape you, it really does.”
