Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
With first possession, Sirianni fumbles
There is one reason to introduce a new head coach in any sport, to stand him in front of a camera, to hand him a microphone, a contract and an opportunity. That reason is to make a fan base believe that everything is about to become better.
Maybe the next time the Eagles try it, and they have done it three times in the last eight years, they will get it right. As for Friday, when they trusted that task to a 39-year-old who had never coached a football team, hired a player or called an NFL play, they added one more turnover to a season with so many that it cost a quarterback and a head coach their jobs.
There have been plenty of disastrous press conferences involving Philadelphia teams. So Nick Sirianni was going to have to work to win a place on that list. Yet he wasn’t 10 minutes into the rambling mess when he nosed within striking distance of the worst mistake in the history of coaching introductions.
That’s when he so mangled the last name of team president Don Smolenski that it brought to mind Larry Brown calling Ed Snider, “Mr. Baldwin.”
Flubbing a name can be human error. Buddy Ryan, whose introductory press conference was so successful that it had fans ready to burn Cowboys flags at Broad and Snyder, didn’t even bother using names. He just called owner Norman Braman “the man in France,” and referred to his players by their uniform numbers.
Different approaches for different coaches.
What can’t happen, though, is for a man to assume one of the 32 most valuable football-coaching jobs in the world and sound like he is trying to impress the assistant athletic director at a high school.
And that is the impression Sirianni left Friday in a cliché-filled appeal to what he had to believe was a city filthy with football fools.
“A core value of mine is fundamentals,” Sirianni said. “Being good at the fundamentals. Winning your one-on-one matchup. Right?”
It was Gabe Kapler vowing that the Phillies would run the bases better, then self-approving his own wisdom by saying “right” before anyone could suggest he was wrong. Sirianni is about to coach some of the most dedicated and gifted athletes in history, millionaires who have risen to the peak of their industry, and he is going to imply that they require football tutorials? “No, no, no, no, no, Fletcher Cox, keep your head up while making that tackle.” In what NFL setting is that going to fly?
“That’s how we develop good players,” Sirianni said, “getting them good at fundamentals.”
It was just about at that point that Jeffrey Lurie should have rung Duce Staley up on the car phone to beg him to return home from Detroit. But apparently the owner didn’t want a coach to revive the Eagles as much as he wanted one to allow his front office to revive the Eagles.
In a telling moment late in the video conference, Sirianni wasn’t even certain that he would be able to choose the active Eagles on game day. Even if that’s how it likely will be, how can there be any confusion on that most rudimentary of coaching responsibilities? Just a stab: Urban Meyer wouldn’t have tripped over that question in Jacksonville.
Sirianni barely answered anything Friday, at least not without an air of terror. Asked multiple times to outline his plan for the quarterback traffic jam, he hedged. When specifically asked if Carson Wentz would be his starter, he acted like somebody else had the responsibility to decide.
“I can’t answer that,” the head coach said. “Again, we’re evaluating everything. Evaluating everything. Again, there’s a lot of things to go through. Evaluating everything.”
If he was so dazzling in the interviews, how could he not have been ready with a thorough, detailed breakdown of Wentz’s regression and his plan for recovery? How could he not have been ready to detail the strengths and weaknesses of Jalen Hurts? Was there some other topic he was being briefed on for the last week? Chin-strap supply in the equipment room, maybe?
So stuck in simple ideas was Sirianni that he tried to flatter the fans with the threadbare wail about
how tough it is for visiting teams to play in the Linc. He also stressed that he often watches a replay of Villanova winning the basketball championship, impressed by how prepared the Wildcats were for the deciding shot. That might have warmed the spirits of some sports fans in his new city, none, though, at 54th and City Line. Stunningly, while admitting to be mesmerized by that basketball clip, Sirianni admitted that he really hasn’t studied much Eagles video since taking the job.
“We don’t know any of these guys really yet from what we’ve seen on tape so far,” he explained, “because we haven’t watched any.” Beg pardon? Haven’t watched any
Eagles tape?
How could Sirianni not have spent triple-digit hours in the last week so thoroughly breaking down film of his new team that he could have aced every question, right down to composition of his practice squad?
Anyway, he is going to be around the NewsControl Compound for a while. Maybe he’ll win games. Maybe he’ll win titles. That’s why there are scoreboards. That’s how he eventually will be judged.
But as for Day 1, the third Eagles coach since 2015 failed to perform his most important task. He failed to spread faith that all will be better.