The lights in the Philadelphia Eagles locker room had dimmed on Wednesday evening. Players’ lockers, so busy for about two hours in the mid-afternoon with players conducting interviews with reporters after meetings with coaches, were empty. It was a ghost town. Then Jalen Hurts showed up around 7 p.m., hours after things went quiet and reporters were summoned by the public relations department to make the trek across the parking lot from the media house for Hurts’ exit interview.
It was there that the quarterback seemed to reverse course on head coach Nick Sirianni. Nearly 48 hours earlier, when asked if he wanted his coach back, he said instead that he didn’t know he was going anywhere, then said he had confidence in everybody in the building, not saying yes or no to whether he wanted Sirianni to return.
On Wednesday, Hurts was asked again about the return. “Owners own, coaches coach and players play,” he said. “I just want to play at a high level. I have a ton of confidence in coach, I have a ton of confidence in (general manager) Howie (Roseman), I have a ton of confidence in (owner Jeffrey) Mr. Lurie. I have to do my job and control the things I can.”
Catch that? “I have a ton of confidence in coach.” A few questions later, Hurts expounded on that. “I was asked that question the other day about that and what’d I say? I didn’t know that was a thing,” he said. “I had no idea that was a thing, so I don’t see why that would be the case. We plan on fixing everything that we’ve done and growing together, coach Sirianni, (offensive coordinator) Brian (Johnson), everyone.”
Keep in mind that Hurts talked after meetings with coaches. Could this mean that Sirianni and Johnson both return? Other players, out of their meetings, also talked about Sirianni. “I don’t understand that (talk of firing the coach),” said left tackle Jordan Mailata. “He’s taken us to the playoffs three consecutive years. He’s taken us to the Super Bowl last year. That’s gotta account for something. He’s a hell of a coach. Hell of a coach. I feel stupid saying that, how did we get there? “I understand. Philly is a hard place to play in. I can see how disappointed we were to end the season with the caliber we had on this team. I can see why we got there. Jesus.”
Fletcher Cox was more forceful when asked about the Sirianni speculation. “Huh? Come on, man,” he said. “He’s the head football coach of this team. Come on, man. There ain’t even no (bleeping) discussion about that, man.” Pressed more on it, Cox said: “I don’t got nothing to say about that. You a clown, bro. Get out of my face.”
Several minutes later, another reporter tried again and Cox said much more. “Come on, man,” he said. “What is there to talk about, man? Because man, he’s a winner. He’s a winning head coach. Did we have some bumps this year? Yeah, but every team, every organization, everybody goes through it.
“We don’t look at firing a man who obviously won 10-plus games two years in a row, that took this organization to three playoff appearances three years in a row. That’s respect. He’s a good leader for this team. He does a really good job. “Did we come up short? Yeah. Did things happen this year? Yeah. But I don’t discuss about firing a man. This man got a family. I don’t discuss anything about that.”
