Nick Sirianni’s Eagles are burning. Jeffrey Lurie may prefer his Eagles rise from the ashes of Sirianni’s tenure.
Lurie fired his coach in 2012, 2015, and 2020. It can't be lost on him that each removal inspired a franchise rebirth.
LANDOVER, Md. — In the NFL, it’s often better to hit rock bottom than continue in a slow, lingering decline. The 2026 Eagles haven’t quite hit their nadir this season, but falling to the equally woeful Washington Commanders, 27-10, on Sunday night suggests this season can head in only one direction.
» READ MORE: Eagles’ offense stifled again in 27-10 loss to Commanders; six-game losing streak is longest since 2012
Perhaps, unless Nick Sirianni can turn the tide. In question is if Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman even want him to sneak the 2-6 Eagles into the playoffs — playoffs? — or reach some level of respectability. That may sound cynical, but great empires have been built from ashes.
The answer could come in the next week ahead of the Nov. 10 trade deadline. Roseman can’t possibly deal away every candidate, but one or two significant moves — a month after center Cam Jurgens was sent to the Baltimore Ravens — will help the general manager in his quest to stockpile draft picks for the future.
Where does that leave Sirianni? Roseman, if he talks with reporters after the deadline, will defend his coach. He will take responsibility for his role in the disintegration of the roster, as he should. His fingerprints are all over the Eagles’ regression since winning Super Bowl LIX almost two years ago.
But Roseman’s job isn’t likely in jeopardy. He can afford to look ahead, not only because his position entitles him to think past this year, but also because he’s as tenured as any executive in the NFL.
» READ MORE: Sean Mannion is the biggest problem plaguing the Eagles offense. Fire him.
Sirianni, meanwhile, has nine games left to salvage this season and save it from becoming a referendum on his ability to lead the Eagles out of their doldrums. Lurie may not want to live through a repeat of 2012, 2015, or 2020. But each lost season resulted in him firing his coach, and if he’s being honest with himself, a rebirth.
That isn’t an endorsement to get rid of Sirianni. But Lurie entertained the idea before (see: after the 2023 season and during the 2024 bye), and it’s just difficult to see another offseason of the Eagles explaining another change at offensive coordinator.
They may end up doing that, but with a new head coach who is also their preferred coordinator.
Doug Pederson lost his job partly because he refused to alter his coaching suggestions following the 2020 season. Sirianni has allowed Lurie and Roseman to influence some of his hires. It’s hard to believe they didn’t have some say in him bringing Sean Mannion and his scheme to Philadelphia.
But Sirianni said he is still sticking by Mannion and his assistants.
“I’ve been around coaches my entire life,” Sirianni said when asked about possible coaching changes. “I know what good coaches look like, and I know I got good coaches in there on that staff, both offensively, defensively, special teams-wise. And so, that’s a daily evaluation.”
While Mannion is new, defensive coordinator Vic Fangio and special teams coordinator Michael Clay are not. They won Super Bowls under Sirianni. They, like their head coach, didn’t suddenly forget how to coach. They simply don’t have the talent they had in 2024.
No one had a good evening at Northwest Stadium (formerly FedEx Field). But Mannion and his offensive coaches took their ineptness to new lows. The Eagles scored the first 10 points — a touchdown was set up by a Commanders fumble — but they were shut out in the final three quarters and averaged just 3.5 yards over that span.
» READ MORE: Eagles grades vs. Commanders: Tanner McKee, offensive line struggle in sixth straight defeat
Quarterback Tanner McKee struggled almost every time he was pressured or had to hold the ball more than three seconds. A less-than-100% Saquon Barkley was bottled up, with Washington focused on stopping the run game. And a receiver group without the injured DeVonta Smith and Dontayvion Wicks failed to make catches downfield.
It’s hard to tell the full story of the offense without mentioning all the starters lost to injury, most significantly quarterback Jalen Hurts. But the problems have existed since training camp — the biggest ones on the offensive line. Hurts and a select few only masked some of the issues.
The main issues up front are twofold: Most of the players aren’t ideal fits for the wide-zone blocking scheme, and the operation against blitzes and simulated pressures doesn’t function. No team has had more unblocked rushers than the Eagles, and that problem continued on Sunday night.
On one play, left guard Landon Dickerson inexplicably slid his protection to center Drew Kendall and allowed an untouched Commanders defender to sack McKee. It defied logic.
“I got to get the guys in the right spot,” McKee said. “We gotta get the calls out.”
McKee and Kendall are primarily responsible for setting presnap protections, and they’re inexperienced, but the answers haven’t often been there. And that points directly at offensive line coach Chris Kuper, Mannion, and Sirianni.
Why on earth is Grant Calcaterra ever being asked to block on the frontside of a play? Why on earth is he even on the roster? No offense to Calcaterra, but shouldn’t the third tight end in a scheme that emphasizes blocking at the point of attack be able to execute that very thing?
Of course, the Eagles don’t even seem to have one competent blocking tight end. And that deficiency falls at the feet of one person: Roseman.
» READ MORE: Eagles’ Tanner McKee fails to move offense again, says unit’s issues are fixable: ‘We need to execute’
But Sirianni and his players will take the slings and arrows for the next two-plus months. All the predictable beats in a losing season are already being hit after a six-game losing streak. Captains will insist it’s execution and not the teaching, game-planning, or play-calling.
“We’re being coached greatly,” Barkley said. “I can’t say that enough. Our coaches are doing a really good job, even if we’re falling apart, of stepping up and calling us out.”
Two plays, in particular, should have the coaches going nuclear. Despite the offensive malaise through the second and third quarters, the Eagles were able to scrape together a drive to the Washington 13-yard line early in the fourth quarter.
But the possession stalled on fourth-and-4. Sirianni decided to go for it with his team trailing, 16-10. They might not have had another chance to get into the end zone. But the operation seemed off and McKee started clapping for the snap with seconds left on the play clock.
“I didn’t feel like I was close to calling a timeout there,” Sirianni said. “So could we have got up there quicker? Yeah, Tanner’s clapping for the ball in that situation, so I don’t know exactly what the issue was in that particular case.”
Markel Bell jumped offside just before the clock hit zero. The rookie right tackle said he just made a mistake and “there was no excuse for it.”
» READ MORE: Saquon Barkley reacts to the report that the Eagles won’t trade him: ‘I plan on being here’
Sirianni then sent the field goal unit out. Jake Elliott’s 36-yard kick sailed through the uprights. But, oh no, there was another flag. Jordan Mailata committed an illegal formation penalty.
“I was too deep,” Mailata said. “I guess I got to be breaking the belt line of the long snapper, and it was just something that I didn’t key on or wasn’t focused on at the time, and they called me for it.”
Elliott, who hadn’t missed a kick all season, had to trot back out for a now-41-yard attempt. He hooked his try and doinked it off the left upright.
“Not a good sequence there,” Sirianni said in a contender for understatement of the year. That series of unfortunate events all but summed up the 2026 Eagles. Bell’s goof could be attributed to his age, but Mailata’s mistake warranted no excuse. The same could be said for the veteran Elliott.
“I feel like with all the detail that’s not happening right now, I got to try a different approach,” Sirianni said. One possibility: “If my delivery needs to be even harsher, it needs to be harsher,” the coach said.
It sounded more like the clutching of straws.
Fangio’s defense could have responded. It did not. There are as many roster moves on that side of the ball to question Roseman’s offseason decision-making, but that’s for another day. Washington would eventually kick another field goal and it was a fait accompli.
The season, of course, is less than halfway from being complete. Many outside the building — and even some inside — may be looking ahead to what’s next. But Sirianni will continue to look inward for answers even if many of the faces he sees weren’t on the team just two seasons ago.
“I know we got a bunch of guys that will continue to fight regardless of the circumstances,” Sirianni said. “I reminded them last night of who they were and the things they’ve accomplished. But we got to go out now and go do it, coaches and players.
“But I believe in those guys, and I believe that we can get it turned around.”
How much longer will the powers that be also hold on to that feeling?
When Jalen Carter is at his game-wrecking best, he’s as unstoppable a force as there is in the NFL. Such was the case during the Eagles’ Super Bowl run two years ago. But since then, between injuries and uneven play, the defensive tackle’s contributions have been inconsistent. On the heels of general manager Howie Roseman signing Carter to a historic contract, The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane looks at the costs of the extension — both in terms of dollars and cents, as well as roster construction. Plus, Jeff advances storylines for the Nov. 10th NFL trade deadline, and, in his weekly mailbag, addresses some reporting about the Eagles’ salary cap situation. Listen here.
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