Across various forms of the internet this season I have seen a common defense of Nick Sirianni, who has no answers to save a sinking ship. This defense comes in two versions of the same flavor: his team doesn’t quit/his players try hard.
First of all, so what? Players not quitting on their team is less than the bare minimum expected of a coach.
The team is poorly coached. The game plan sucks, the play calling sucks, the in-game decisions suck, the post-game retrospect sucks. “They play hard” doesn’t
have a lot of sticking power when it’s all you have. Dan Quinn is just down the road if you want a guy who brings nothing to the table other than effort.
Secondly, it looks like that ship has sailed. Jordan Mailata sowed seeds of doubts about that last week when he said the team didn’t play with “want to.” He was here for the 2020 season, he knows what a lost cause looks like.
Monday night was the same script as all season: hang around in the first half, then crumble in the second. They have the worst scoring offense in the second half, and the 6th worst scoring defense.
Even in their two wins the Eagles were outscored by Washington in the second half and tied the Titans in the second half.
And over his career, Nick Sirianni is now 0-8 as a home underdog, and the Eagles are the only team to not win as a home underdog since 2021. He’s also never covered. Granted, half of those games the line was 3 points or less, but they usually don’t come close to covering, nor do they muck up the game.
Pride comes before the fall. When you no longer have “they played hard” as a fall back, what is left? Nothing.
The 2012 team was 3-1 then lost 8 straight. The 2015 team was 4-4, a month later the starting RB was complaining to the owner on the plane. The 2020 team was 3-4-1, finished 1-7.
This season is over. All that is left is the shouting.
