From being laughed out of his first press conference to starting 2-5 with a questionable offensive scheme, things looked very bumpy early on for rookie Head Coach Nick Sirianni. If we fast forward a few months, the Eagles are on the cusp of a playoff berth and the consensus is that Sirianni has surpassed every expectation in what has been a rollercoaster first season with the Philadelphia Eagles.
After the first couple of games it felt as if maybe Nick came in prepared to coach Carson Wentz and not Jalen Hurts. The Eagles were a pass-heavy offense with aa lack of talent to back it up. Jalen’s arm talent was not enough to carry the weight of an entire offense that was struggling to get out of its own way. Then came the game against the Dallas Cowboys where rookie head coach made the expected mistakes and his quarterback followed suit.
Sirianni admittedly went into the game prepared to have a shootout with the Dallas Cowboys. He played to his own teams’ weaknesses instead of to their strength. That sucked the life out of every Eagles fan from the northeast to the west coast. Fans everywhere started to chant “run the ball” at Eagles games in hopes that the head coach would hear their cry.
Well… he did.
Sirianni went back to basics and started to focus on the strengths of his offense – The agile offensive line and the versatile running back group. He threw in a little bit of Dallas Goedert and mixed him with the great route running ability of DeVonta Smith to create a rushing offense that can pack a real punch if defenses key in on the ground game. An offense that has been the pure reflection of their leader. Passionate, creative, and smart.
The Eagles stumbled upon this offense when they played the Raiders in Las Vegas. Although Miles Sanders went down with an injury, we saw glimpses of the new running attack. One week later and without their star running back, the Eagles ran for 236 rushing yards and annihilated the Lions 44-6.
Ever since then, the offense has established itself as the best rushing offense in the league.The team has since averaged 203 rushing yards per game. On the season, they’re averaging 163 yards per game and 5.1 yards per carry. They’ve been doing this even while dealing with injuries to both Jordan Howard and Miles Sanders.
Sirianni has shown that it doesn’t matter what you put up against his team. As long as the team believes in themselves, then the sky is the limit for this offense. This team has fought for their head coach no matter what and have also fought for one another.
The team never turned their back on Jalen Reagor when he dropped the game-winning touchdown pass. They never questioned their coach when they were 2-5 which has led them to a record of 6-2 ever since week 7. It also has them in the playoff hunt with a wild card date with the Cowboys as of now.
The franchise made a bold move in hiring an inexperienced play-caller as their head coach and it’s paying off big time. While Sirianni may not win Coach of the Year, he absolutely deserves to be in the conversation for the way he’s proved every doubter wrong while steadily growing as a Coach and play caller week in and week out.
Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire
