The Eagles offense failed again to look even remotely competent against the Bears on Black Friday, and head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters following the 24-15 loss. He talked about OC Kevin Patullo remaining the play-caller, how they still need to find answers on offense, and why the run defense doesn’t have an effort problem.
Without a chance to watch the tape yet, Sirianni pointed to areas that affected the outcome of Friday’s game.
“It was both units, offense, defense, hats off to them. They played a good game; they coached a good game. They outcoached us; they outplayed us. That’s obviously something that I need to go through and watch, look through it, but to say I don’t want to– again, they ran for however many yards. We didn’t run for many yards. We lost the turnover battle. We lost the explosive play battle. All those things are going to dictate the win and loss.”
Here’s what the head coach had to say:
On the offensive play-calling
Sirianni was asked about whether he’d evaluate changing play-callers, and he went on to explain that they’ll evaluate everything coming off this lose, but noted that it’s never about one person.
“We all collectively have to do a better job and that’s going to be starting with us as coaches, starting with me as head coach, finding solutions to get the offense going, and so I’ll put that on us as a staff and put that on me most individually there to help get this thing pointed in the right direction.”
Still, he said that they all have to look internally and all have to get better, both coaches and players.
Sirianni was pressed again a little later on to clarify whether the evaluations could result in the head coach changing the play-caller, to which he was firm, “No, we’re not changing the play caller, but we will evaluate everything.”
The head coach later said that he has confidence in the entire group of offensive coaches, including OC Kevin Patullo.
“I know it will keep coming back to Kevin, but again, if I thought it was one thing, then you make those changes. Obviously, it’s a lot of different things, but I don’t think it is Kevin. Now, we all have a part in it. Kevin has a part of it. I have a part of it. All the coaches have a part of it. All the players have a part of it. Again, you win and lose as a team. It’s never on one thing.”
On the offensive struggles
“I wish I could tell you this is exactly what it is, and this is hard. It’s not easy to be successful, stay successful, so we have to, again, do it collectively. We have to do it collectively as a unit.
Obviously, if I knew exactly what it was and everything that it was, then we’d have fixed it. But right now, we’re still searching and we’re still looking, and [there’s] a lot of football left to play. 8-4 right now. A lot of football left to play.
This weekend will be an opportunity for us to find more answers and to figure things out as coaches, players being able to rest to gear up for this last stretch of five games. Obviously, it hasn’t been good enough, coaching, playing, and we’ve got to find answers.”
On the run game
Sirianni said that the imbalance between the run and pass game was partly due to the flow of the game. He also pointed to paying from behind late in the games and having a lot of throws at the end of the game. Still, he acknowledged that they want to be more balanced in their offensive attack, but said they’ll do what they need to try and win each game.
The head coach was asked about Tank Bigsby’s role, who hasn’t seen the field much since his big game against the Giants.
“He’s still always going to be the guy that comes in for Saquon, and like I said, we want to get Saquon more than 13 carries also, but we have a lot of confidence in [Tank Bigsby] when he goes into the football game to make plays. We’ll continue to roll the way we are rolling with it. But yeah, when he goes in, he’s had some really good plays. We’ll continue to roll. We want to make sure we get Saquon the football. We know how explosive he can be when he has the football.”
On letting the clock run before the half
“We were still pushing for points. We were still pushing for points. We had three timeouts, ball at the 30 whatever, 38. We had plenty of time to go and score a touchdown and be the last ones with the football, so we got the one yard on the completion with 2:37. Then took it to the two-minute warning and we were going on the ball after that.”
When pointed out that it seemed like an uncharacteristic call for the normally aggressive head coach, Sirianni dismissed the notion and explained that’s pretty normal to how they would play that situation.
On Jalen Hurts’ performance
“Obviously, we weren’t good enough as an offense, as a whole. Coaching, playing, everything. Obviously, go back, look at everything, but I thought [Jalen Hurts] made some good plays, had some good scrambles, had some good things that he did. Just like all of us, he had some plays that he’ll want back and he had some really good plays, but again, we just weren’t consistent enough as a whole.“
On the defensive performance
Sirianni was asked about the run defense, and he gave credit to D’Andre Swift who made guys miss, but also acknowledged that when you give up that many rushing yards, everyone has a hand in that. He said they need to evaluate the positions they’re putting players in, as well as the block destruction and tackling execution.
“I see our guys playing with extreme, extreme effort. That’s something that we talk about a lot. We look at a lot. We chart our loafs and our guys. I know I’ve seen for the past, what are we on? 11 games, extreme effort, so I’m never going to question that because they’ve proven it to me over and over and over again how hard they play for each other. I don’t think at all it was an effort thing.”
On the two-point conversion attempt
Sirianni explained that they would have had to get a two-point conversion at some point given the score, and being down nine points is a situation he’s studied a lot. Going for the two-point conversion is always going to be the decision in that scenario.
“Now, the thought behind it is you want to know exactly what you need right there. If you go down seven, then obviously it’s a one-score game. If you go down eight, I know it’s a one-score game as well. That’s what we do in that scenario. I’ll always go back and look and reconsider things. Had three timeouts there to be able to potentially kick it deep there if we did get it. Obviously, we didn’t in that particular case, but at some point, you’re going to need it and I always want to know early what I need going forward.”
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