Since arriving in Philadelphia in 2021, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni has blossomed into one of the top bench bosses in the NFL. What started with criticism as the head coach waxed poetically about flowers during his first campaign has grown into a World Championship-caliber football program at the NovaCare complex in South Philadelphia several seasons later. The Eagles rewarded that success with a multi-year contract extension on Monday.
Lurie Speaks Highly-Prized Head Coach
Through four seasons in Philadelphia, Sirianni is 48-20, with two NFC East Championships and a shiny new Super Bowl LIX ring on the way. His .701 winning percentage is the highest among active NFL coaches. Entering the 2025 season, Sirianni ranks fifth all-time in league history behind NFL Hall-of-Famers Vince Lombardi (0.738), John Madden (0.759), and Guy Chamberlin (0.784).
In a statement released on social media, Eagles Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie spoke highly of the Super Bowl-winning coach. “As an organization, we have always strived to create a championship culture of sustained success,” Lurie said. “Nothing is more important to fostering such an environment than having tremendous leadership. Nick has embodied everything we were looking for in a head coach since we hired him four years ago. His authentic style of leadership, football intelligence, passion for the game, and growth mindset have helped to bring out the best in our team. I am excited for what the future holds for the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Sirianni’s Style Deeply Rooted in Eagles Culture Entering Year 5
While most of Sirianni’s tenure has been successful, the first few months in Philadelphia were heavily scrutinized. Philly started the 2021 season with a 2-4 record, including consecutive home losses to San Francisco, Kansas City, and Tampa Bay. A road loss in the Las Vegas Raiders dropped the Eagles to 2-5. Despite the sputtering record, Sirianni showed faith in his team and provided one of Philadelphia’s more memorable press conferences of this decade.
“You know, the results aren’t there right now,” Sirianni said. “But what’s happening here is that there is growth under the soil. I put a picture of a flower, it’s coming through the ground, and its roots are growing out. Everyone wants to see results. Shoot – no one wants to see results more than us. But it’s really important that the foundation is being built. The only way the roots grow out every single day … is if we all water …we all fertilize… we all do our part. Each individual coach, each individual player, and everybody in the building.”
Unsurprisingly, many in the Delaware Valley scoffed at the notion of flowers and football stars at the time. Philly finished with a 9-8 record after allowing the Dallas Cowboys to post 51 points in a meaningless Week 18 game. Many questions about Sirianni’s leadership, despite the Eagles finishing with a 7-3 record.
The following season, Sirianni coached the Eagles to a Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs in 2022, before an epic start in 2023 nosedived into an 11-6 finish. The 43-year-old head coach answered all the questions with a 14-3 season in 2024, while helping to create lifelong memories for generations of Eagles fans during a triumphant Super Bowl LIX win.
Over 1,300 days have passed since Sirianni used his analogy about flowers to describe the team bonding and camaraderie needed to win Championships in professional sports. After two Super Bowl appearances and a trip down Broad Street a few months ago, Sirianni’s proverbial roots from Oct. 2021 look firmly rooted in the Philadelphia soil after his multi-year contract extension.
Sirianni’s Win Rate is Unmatched Among Eagles Coaches
Sirianni’s 71% winning percentage is the highest among some brilliant football minds who have coached an entire season in the City of Brotherly Love. Eagles Legends like Dick Vermeil, Buddy Ryan, and others won more games than they lost in Philly, but not to the extreme that Sirianni has in his Eagles tenure.
For nearly a decade in the 1940s, Greasy Neale coached 111 games with a 63-43-5 record (.594 winning percentage), which places second in the Eagles’ history books. Neale coached the Eagles to back-to-back shutouts in the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships games, the only time a franchise has posted consecutive clean sheets in the NFL’s most high-profile matchup.
Andy Reid’s 130 wins in 224 games (.583) rank third on the wins list – a record that will take Sirianni almost another decade on the sideline to reach. Watch out for that 2034 Eagles schedule release! Reid’s downfall was a 10-9 playoff record (0.526), which ultimately caused the departure of “Big Red” to Kansas City to change the course of NFL history.
Some other notable names from the Eagles coaching history books are Rich Kotite (.563), Buddy Ryan (.551), and Dick Vermeil (.535). Doug Pederson, a coach memorialized as part of a bronze statue outside Lincoln Financial Field, finished his four-year Eagles career with a 42-37-1 mark, or a .531 win rate. Of course, the only win anyone cared about at the time was Philadelphia’s 41-33 win over New England at Super Bowl LII to claim the Eagles’ first Super Bowl title in franchise history.
This fall, Sirianni will likely earn his 50th win in his fifth season as head coach of the Eagles. That milestone puts him in elite company with Reid, Neale, and Vermeil as the only Eagles coaches to win 50 games in the regular season. While Reid’s in-season win milestone (130 victories) might be many years away, Sirianni has won six of his nine postseason matchups in the NFL, leaving him only four wins shy… one more Super Bowl championship run, perhaps? … of tying Reid as the all-time leader for NFL playoff wins in Eagles franchise history.
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
