Fortune favors the bold

This is no time for cowards

Over the first three seasons of Nick Sirianni’s head coaching career, no coach was more eager to go for it on fourth down than Sirianni. The Eagles started the fourth down revolution with Doug Pederson, and continued it with Sirianni.

Until this year. This season, Sirianni is middle of the pack in go rate, and the leader is Dan Quinn.

If we break the season, including playoffs, into quarters (excluding the final week which was meaningless for the Eagles), we see that Quinn hasn’t been shy lately, while Sirianni has gotten conservative.

Field goals are not going to beat the Commanders. They didn’t in December with Kenny Pickett at QB, and if Jalen Hurts can’t run there isn’t much of a difference between the two QBs.

On the one hand, if Hurts isn’t full go with his knee or finger, that could easily push Sirianni to stay conservative. But on the other hand, Jake Elliott’s struggles might be a benefit here and force Sirianni to get aggressive. And any struggles by Hurts would also be a reason to go for it. In December, the Eagles had a 4th and 5 from the Commanders’ 6 yard line, up 21-14. Sirianni should have kept his offense on the field, but he kicked a FG instead.

The Eagles have several advantages over the Commanders. None of them may matter if one coach is a cowardly disadvantage and the other is an aggressive advantage.