Not long after the Eagles left the field following their disappointing loss to the Cowboys, head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters and talked about his role leading this team through adversity, and concerns and struggles on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. “Obviously, we gotta play a little bit better, there’s no doubt about that. Wasn’t our best two performances in a row, and we’ll just pick ourselves up.”
Here’s what else the head coach had to say:
On his role through adversity
He said that his job as a head coach is the same as it is if you’ve won five in a row, or lost two in a row, it’s all about the next play — learning from the mistakes and moving on. “Get the guys ready to play physically. Get the guys ready to play mentally. Have the right message for the week based off of what’s going on. Manage the game well. Roles the same as it’s always been, and now we’re going through some adversity.
Adversity can do a couple things to you — it can break you, or it can make you way better. And I know that everybody that’s in that locker room, has been through shit in their lives and made it to this point.” Sirianni went on to say that they just have to make sure that they are able to get through the adversity they’re facing now and make sure they get better from it.
On the biggest offensive concerns
The head coach said that he needed to watch the film to see exactly what went wrong, but they have some ideas. He noted that obviously turnovers were an issue, and some things happened early in the first half. Sirianni wouldn’t talk about the offensive struggles that precluded Sunday’s performance, but did say that they struggled against the Cowboys. He thought they moved the ball up and down the field pretty well against a good defense, but Dallas did a good job taking away the football. “Three turnovers on fumbles, they got us to punt, I think two times there. I just really thought a lot of it was about the turnovers.
Because, I thought Jalen [Hurts] did a good job of kinda going to the right place with the football, guys were getting to the spots they needed to, but we uncharacteristically turned it over on some fumbles.” The head coach was asked if the team’s discipline was slipping these past two weeks, with penalties and turnovers, but he pointed more to not playing or coaching detailed enough.
On the defensive struggles
Sirianni later highlighted needing to figure out how to start faster on both sides of the ball, and said it all comes from him doing a better job, the coaches doing a better job, and the players executing better. He didn’t think that the defensive struggles carried over from last game, it was just a matter of not starting fast enough.
The head coach had talked earlier in the week about the defense focusing on getting more stops on third down, something they didn’t do on Sunday. Sirianni said he’d need to watch the tape, but acknowledged the Cowboys had three or four explosive plays on third down. So, it’s not just about the defense not stopping the conversion, but also about stopping the explosive plays.
Other notables
.Sirianni explained that based on the information he was getting from upstairs, they thought the refs made the right call when they picked up the flag thrown on the first Cowboys touchdown.
.On the 4th-and-8 playcall, the head coach said they had a play they’ve used and had success with against man coverage, and it just didn’t work out this time. Sirianni said that at that point they would’ve been down two possessions if he had kicked a field goal or if the kick missed, so he chose to go for it.
