TAMPA — After an embarrassing playoff loss to put an exclamation point on a colossal collapse, the question was a fair one.
Is Nick Sirianni worried about his job?
“I’m not thinking about that,” the Eagles head coach said after Monday’s 32-9 loss to the Buccaneers in the wild-card round. “I’m thinking about the guys. Again, there is a lot of guys in that locker room, all the guys in that locker room, every single one of them, that put their heart and soul into this.
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“I’m not worried about me. I’m not. You know, as the head coach, I'm just trying to be there for our guys and staff right now through a tough time. Obviously, we didn't finish anywhere near where we wanted to finish. And so, again, my heart feels for these guys, we’re are all taking it hard and that is where my mind is right now.”
Eagles owner Jeff Lurie has a lot to think about.
On one hand, Sirianni has a 34-17 regular season record. He has led the Eagles to the playoffs in each of his three seasons as their head coach. And he got them all the way to a Super Bowl in 2022 and came pretty darn close to winning it.
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On the other hand, this collapse is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the NFL. Not only did the Eagles lose six of their last seven games, but they lost many of them in embarrassing fashion. Once the calendar turned to December, the Eagles went 1-6 and had a point differential of -82.
In the coming days, the Eagles will go through exit interviews with players and Sirianni will presumably meet with the front office and ownership about his future and the future of the team.
We’ll all just have to wait and see.
“I’m just like you. I’m f—ing sitting and watching,” veteran Lane Johnson said. “I really don’t know what’s going to happen. But it’s very frustrating. You see what this team was and you see how the team ended and the slide that we had. There was no stopping. It was very frustrating. It’s a wild business we’re in. Nobody is safe. We’ll see what happens.”
Most of the Eagles in the locker room on Monday night publicly supported Sirianni, who made real effort over the last three seasons to connect with his players. But that connection wasn’t enough to hold together the 2023 season.
After the loss on Monday, quarterback Jalen Hurts was asked if he wants Sirianni back.
“I didn’t know he was going anywhere,” said Hurts, claiming he didn’t know about the questions surround his head coach.
When asked about his level of confidence in Sirianni to fix the team, Hurts didn’t take the opportunity to publicly support Sirianni. He instead answered in a more general sense.
“I have a ton of confidence in everyone in this building,” Hurts said. “Just a matter of us going out there and playing clean football, and that's been something we have not done.”
Even if Sirianni is back for 2024, there will be changes. Lurie simply will not run it back after the way this season ended.
In the wake of Monday’s loss, Sirianni was asked about his coordinators and potential changes coming to the coaching staff. Just like the questions about himself, he wasn’t ready to go there.
“Yeah, I mean, that's premature to talk through that,” Sirianni said. “Everybody in the locker room is hurting right now, coaches, players, staff. Everybody in that locker room is hurting. My job right now is to be there for them, be there for the guys.
“We will get into all that, I'm not there yet. But, yeah, we're hurting right now -- It's tough to go out the way we did. Hats off to the Bucs, they had a good game plan, they did a good job. My mind right now is not there, got a lot of time to think about that. My mind right now is on the locker room, the guys, the coaches, all those things.”
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