The Eagles are in a bit of a mess right now. We all knew the team would go through some growing pains this season, but the product on the field better resembles being punched in the gut over and over. Growing pains but without the growing, if you will. Nick Sirianni met with reporters on Wednesday to discuss the lay of the land and he opened up on the message being sent to the team ahead of a matchup with the 0-7 Detroit Lions.
This is what I said to the team today is that I said the results aren’t there right now, but what’s going on here is that there’s growth under the soil. I put a picture of a flower up, and it’s coming through the ground, and the roots are growing out. The roots are continuing to grow out. Everybody wants to see results. Shoot, nobody wants to see results more than us, right? We want to see results too.
But it’s really important that the foundation is being built and that the roots are growing out. And the only way the roots grow out every single day and they grow stronger and they grow better is if we all water, we all fertilize, we all do our part, each individual, each individual coach, each individual player, everybody in the building, that we do our part to water to make sure that, when it does pop out, it really pops out and it grows.
So that was my message today. Like I said to you guys before, I’m always thinking of different messages to give to the team that are either messages that I think really fit to the situation that I’ve gotten before in a situation from another head coach or from my dad or whatever. So that was my message today because we are going through tough times, and everybody wants to see results.
But just keep doing what we’re doing, keep watering, and look at yourself first and know are you watering and are you fertilizing every day? So, when it’s time to pop, it will pop.
Naturally, Eagles twitter ran riot with this because the idea of addressing a 2-5 team after a loss like that and giving them a flower analogy is humorous at best. What Sirianni is saying isn’t wrong, but whether or not the time was right to bring out a very simplistic analogy that feels like it should be given to a group of teenagers is another debate entirely.
When I was younger, I was told about the analogy of a Swan swimming. Everyone sees an elegant animal gently gliding on the water but are unable to look at just how hard its legs are kicking under the surface. Even something like that would’ve probably been a better fit here instead of almost coming across as condescending to a locker room that could already be beginning to lose faith.
That’s where the real issue lies. Right now you have a franchise legend in Fletcher Cox, the teams’ highest-paid player, dishing out scheme-based criticism. I’m sure the last thing he would want to hear ahead of game-week is an analogy about watering a flower…with a picture of one being presented to the team.
I get what Nick Sirianni is trying to do, but when battling through adversity, there are going to be moments of doubt and hesitation. If those are already creeping out of the floorboards, it’s hard to imagine this kind of thing do anything other than expedite the process.
Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire
