PHILADELPHIA -- He had jawed with Eagles fans and jawed with two Cleveland Browns players and heard faint "Fire Nick" chants from a few furious folks in the bleachers as his players trudged to the locker room at halftime. Now Nick Sirianni entered the Lincoln Financial Field postgame press conference room Sunday with his three children in tow -- Jacob, Taylor, and Miles, all of them adorable, none of them more than 9 years old -- and the only conclusion to draw from the scene was that those kids must be made of Kevlar.
In the closing seconds of the Eagles' 20-16 victory, the Fox cameras had caught Sirianni refusing to exercise even a smidge of self-control once again. There he was, barking back at who-knows-how-many fans, putting his index finger to his right ear in an I-can't-hear-you gesture just before walking off the field, reaffirming that he's too insecure to let even the most mindless public criticism roll off him.
The Browns are awful, 1-5 and with a starting quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who hasn't been competent this season. Still, they almost pinned the kind of loss on the Eagles that can sink a season, and instead of acknowledging that there wasn't much good about anything the Eagles had done, Sirianni delivered one tone-deaf response after another. It was as if he thought that no one had paid any attention to what had transpired for the previous three hours -- and that no one was familiar with his track record of failure in quelling his emotions and staying clear-headed in the heat of a game.
"Just excited to get the win, and appreciate the Linc support," he said. "It's damn hard to win in this league."
Come on, Nick. Come on. In Sirianni's mind, apparently everyone who covers or follows or roots for the Eagles is a leg, and he can soak them all and assure them that it's just a passing rainstorm.
It was impossible to watch him on that dais -- his kids smiling and squirming as he dropped a s--- and an ass and smacked the table and monologued about the passion of a home crowd whose members spent most of the day sitting on their hands -- and not see what was really going on.
This was an insult to everyone's intelligence, an oh-so cynical maneuver from a coach whose team was fortunate to beat a bad opponent, a coach who tried to use the smallest and youngest members of his family to shield him from any pointed but appropriate questions, a coach whose future with the Eagles remains so uncertain.
"Everybody doubts him. Everybody doubts him," safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson said. "I think the only people who don't doubt him [are] us. I don't think you guys know how much [expletive] he takes on the daily, and we've got to back him up. I'm just proud that he's my coach and no one else's coach."
This was the justification for Sirianni's behavior from the players who were willing to defend him: He should be himself, and the team will be better for it.
"I just told him to be him," Brandon Graham said. "I need him to be 2022 Nick so we can get there."
Except Sirianni's demeanor had next to nothing to do with the Eagles' going 16-4 and nearly winning the Super Bowl that season. That team had better players, better coaching, and a better, more dynamic version of Jalen Hurts. A coach isn't judged by whether his players like him. He's judged by whether his team improves and succeeds under him, and for all the praise that Sirianni's current and former players like to throw his way, the Eagles have been performing for a while now like a team that doesn't give a damn whether he stays or goes.
The truth is that 2022 Nick, 2023 Nick, and 2024 Nick are proving to be the same immature, rabbit-eared guy. The one who screamed at fans in Indianapolis in some misguided attempt to avenge his just-fired mentor, Frank Reich. The one who gloated to Kansas City Chiefs fans as he strutted through a tunnel after a big Monday night win last year at Arrowhead Stadium. The one who needs a cooler on the sideline -- Dom DiSandro, the franchise's chief security officer -- to keep him focused and calm his temper.
If you're looking for reasons that the Eagles are so inconsistent in their performance from week to week, you could do worse than turn your eyes to a head coach who's incapable of displaying the same discipline he claims to demand of his players. If only Sirianni himself could pick up on the connection.
"When I'm operating and having fun, I think that breeds to the rest of the football team," he said. "If I want the guys to celebrate after big plays, then I should probably do that myself, right? There's a time for that, and there's a time when I have to have wisdom and discernment of when to do that and when not to do that."
Sirianni's problem, though, is that he can't tell the difference. He can't help himself. He can't stop himself. And every outburst like Sunday's damages the image he's supposed to project and the respect he's supposed to inspire.
His children were sitting there with him on that dais, and he waxed on and on about his desire to share these wonderful, precious moments with them. And maybe if he talked long enough about family and football, everyone would forget how close his team had come to another collapse, how he'd created another embarrassing incident for himself, how he'd provided so much cause to wonder how long he'll last as the Eagles' head coach.
For the latest time but probably not the last, for your future in Philadelphia, for your football team, and for your own good: Grow up, Nick. Grow up.
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