PHILADELPHIA — Nick Sirianni is only 42, too young to stress about stress but old enough to know when he needs to keep it to a limit.
So when the Eagles’ coach flagged himself last week for exhibiting too much sideline tension during a victory over the New York Giants, he didn’t turn to a chill pill. The way he had it figured, a mirror would be just as therapeutic.
“You just evaluate that each and every week,” Sirianni was saying Friday, before a NovaCare Complex practice. “And I think that’s just your process each and every week: What could I have done better here? And that’s what I felt last week and that’s what I shared.”
Sirianni is in his third season as an NFL head coach, already has been to a Super Bowl, and has a team heavily favored to improve to 12-4 Sunday afternoon when the Arizona Cardinals visit the Linc.
So why was he he been so anxious late in what has been a satisfying season? Just because he cried at the Super Bowl, he knows he need not get himself as worked up as Dick Vermeil.
“Yeah, that’s why I said what I said last week,” he said, of his too-tense confession. “Every time in a game or after a game, I’m really thinking about, ‘Were the guys ready to play physically? Did I do the right things throughout the week to help them be ready to play physically — I mean, just physically be ready to play? Did I take enough time off practice? Did I do enough on practice?’ All those different things.
“You also think about, ‘Did I manage the game well?’ What are the mistakes I made there? Or what are the good things I did there.’”
Sirianni has done plenty to keep the Eagles in control of the NFC East, and they could wind up with the No. 1 overall conference postseason seeding. Still, he was less than thrilled with his own demeanor in that victory over New York, a game that was closer than many felt necessary.
“Last week, I felt like in the midst of that game it wasn’t so much the messaging but it was more so in that tense moment that I did that,” Sirianni said. “Just like everything else, you evaluate. And I didn’t like that I didn’t call a timeout after Kenny (Gainwell) got tacked in bounds. “Then you also think about my role with the offense. Were the designs the way they needed to be on offense? What could we have done better here? And then you think about the messaging to the team as well. That’s my last thing there as the head coach: The messaging.
“So each and every week, you go through what you think.”
Sirianni thinks the Eagles are a good team and has the metrics to support it. But he knows they have lost three of their last four, that the Cardinals have some speed, and that their coach — his former defensive coordinator, Jonathan Gannon — has committed their playbook to memory.
So, he … worries?
“You’re just always trying to get better each week,” he offered, breaking new ground for sports analysis. “And that’s what we’re trying to do: Get better each week. And sometimes there are going to be spurts of good football and there are going to be spurts of football that’s not so good. And you’re just trying to minimize that, and appreciate the win.
“But also, you are striving to get better. And in striving to get better, there is a fine line. There is, ‘Man, we won, but gosh, this could have been better.’ I think that’s what makes a lot of good players great – that striving to get better. And I said the same thing with the coaches.
“So you never have that feeling of satisfied, but you’ve got to enjoy it, too.”
If nothing else, that’s what Sirianni reminded himself after a week of nervous tension.
“You’ve got to,” he said, “enjoy the wins as well.”
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The Eagles will enter Week 17 ranked fifth from the bottom in turnover differential at minus-7.
Either they are about to enjoy a two-week takeaway bonanza or one Sirianni theory will have been shattered.
“I do believe those even themselves out,” he said. “But I firmly believe still that we’ve got to continue to harp on it and even do a better job of what we’re doing as far as the way we’re coaching it. And then also we’ve got to execute it better.”
The Ravens, Steelers and Buccaneers — all at plus-10 — lead the NFL. Some of the Eagles’ troubles, senses Sirianni, are due to unfortunate bounces.
“You can’t get wrapped up in the ones that might not be bouncing your way, because I do believe in this game and in a 17-game season, that all that stuff evens itself out,” he said. “So we’ll wait for some of those to bounce our way in that, but it always starts with what we can control.
“And that’s the way we coach it, the way we execute it, and the detail within that.”
• • •
A.J. Brown, who has not spoken to the media since the Giants game, remained in character Friday, leaving the locker room soon after the press availability and not returning.
“I was taught if I had nothing good to say, to not say anything,” he had said Monday. “I’ll take the fine if I have to.”
