4 ways Nick Sirianni could still cost the Eagles in the playoffs

The Philadelphia Eagles have the most talented roster in the NFL, and all starters are going into the postseason healthy. If their playoff run gets cut short, it won’t be because the players are worse than the other team’s players. 

The defense is a bonafide world-beater, so it probably won’t come down to that side of the ball either. That leaves the offense. Unfortunately, the Eagles have lost games this season because of the offense, and specifically, Nick Sirianni’s decisions with the offense.

Nick Sirianni’s made some big-time bad decisions this season

It’s been a minute since Nick made a boneheaded decision that put the team at risk, but he has done it before, and he’s done it in high-leverage situations. 

In the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVII, he famously decided to punt the ball on a fourth-and-three from his 32-yard line when the Eagles were down 28-27. That punt ended up being terrible and the Chiefs returned it to the Eagles’ five-yard line. It was a cowardly move for a coach who has made a name for himself with aggressive fourth-down play calls.

Those are the mistakes Nick can’t afford to make.

Kill the clock:

It’s easy to say that the Eagles would have had a 16-1 record if it weren’t for DeVonta Smith and Saquon Barkley dropping two key passes. That’s technically right, but Saquon never should have been in a situation to drop that pass. 

At the end of the Week 2 game, the Eagles were moving down the field on a drive that should’ve run out the clock. It was a third-and-one coming out of the two-minute warning. The Falcons intentionally committed a pre-snap penalty to give the Eagles the first down, and Nick declined it. 

That was good. Any time the other team purposefully does something like that, you should decline the penalty. It falls directly into the, ‘Do the exact opposite of what the bad guy wants you to do’ line of thinking. That was the Falcons’ attempt to try to control the clock because they still had three timeouts and they would’ve been able to use them all on a new set of downs. 

Nick’s problems came shortly after. They Brotherly Shoved for a first down and Atlanta used their first timeout. Then they ran the ball for four yards and Atlanta used their second timeout. THEN they ran the ball for three yards and Atlanta used their final timeout. 

This is the situation: The Eagles have a three-point lead. It’s third-and-three from the Falcons’ 10-yard line. There is 1:46 left in the game. The only thing the Eagles had to do was keep the clock running. 

Nick called a pass, and Saquon dropped it, which stopped the clock with 1:39 left. Should Saquon have caught that ball? Yes. Would it have been a first down if he caught the ball? Also, yes. Was it the wrong play to run? YUP.

If Nick had run the ball (and there were no offensive penalties called), the worst thing that could happen is that they get to fourth down with the clock running down to 60-ish seconds. Saquon was averaging 4.5 yards per carry that game and Jalen was averaging 6.5 yards… Hell, on that drive Saquon was averaging 5 yards while the Falcons were selling out to stop the run. So, while the worst case was a fourth down with the clock ticking, it probably would’ve ended in an easily convertible fourth-and-one or a first down.

Nick can’t afford to do things like that. He needs to be smart when it comes to late-game clock management in close games and steer clear of those easily avoidable mistakes that a 10-year-old wouldn’t make in a game of Madden.

Don’t back the dog into a corner:

Nick made another terrible decision right after that Saquon drop when he decided to kick a field goal to bring the Eagles’ lead from 18-15 to 21-15… In other words, he kicked a field goal to turn a one-score game into a one-score game, but with higher stakes. That was a garbage decision because if a team is down by six points, they have two options: win or lose. 

The Falcons were backed into a corner. It was inside the two-minute warning and they didn’t have any timeouts left, so they were going to have to hit home runs and that’s exactly what they did. In three-point games, teams know that they can tie the game and they tend to tuck their tail; They’re totally fine with taking a field goal to bring the game to overtime. 

All Nick did was put his defense in a terrible spot. Again, it's a situation that he could’ve avoided entirely. In this case, you could consider this his second chance after calling the Saquon pass, but he absolutely botched it. You can’t do those things in do-or-die games.

Take the unreachable lead:

Let’s fast forward to the Jaguars game in Week 9. Nick had multiple situations where he stuck to his rules even though they didn’t make sense. Luckily, linebacker Nakobe Dean saved the day with a game-ending interception in the endzone and the Eagles won 28-23.

On the Eagles' last drive before halftime, they scored a touchdown and the score was 16-0. On the extra point, one of the Jags’ players jumped offsides. Nick accepted this penalty, as he is wont to do, and tried to Brotherly Shove the ball in on a one-yard two-point conversion, but it surprisingly failed.

That was a bad idea because the game stayed at 16-0 which is still just a two-score game. If Nick would’ve just kicked the extra point, a 17-point lead would’ve made it a three-score game. The juice of two points wasn’t worth the squeeze, because an 18-point lead is also a three-score game.

The SAME EXACT THING happened on the Eagles' very next drive. Instead of kicking an extra point to take a 23-point lead (which is a three-score lead), he tried to make it a 24-point lead (which is a three-score lead). Instead, the Eagles ended up with a 22-point lead (which, to be fair, is a three-score lead. Just with fewer points). That time his decision wasn’t as dumb, but it was still pretty dumb.

Nick needs to be more flexible with his rules. In general, accepting the penalty on an extra point so you can go for an easier two-point conversion is a good rule, but it’s not ALWAYS a good rule. 

The Eagles were annihilating the Jags when he was making these choices, but Jacksonville still found a way back into the game and made it much closer than it ever should have been. If the Eagles get a big lead in a playoff game against the Lions, who have an exponentially better offense than the Jags, making these kinds of mistakes will end up burning him.

Figure out Jake Elliott:

Jake Elliott has been having trouble kicking field goals all season, and it looks like that trouble gets amplified in the cold weather. 

Say the Eagles have the ball with 30 seconds left before halftime. Do they need to get the ball to the 38 or the 28-yard line? Or do they even want to kick the field goal? Is Jalen Hurts going to have to get to the line to spike the ball for Jake to come out, or is he going to need to run a hurry-up play for a shot at the end zone? 

Nick needs to figure out what Jake can do. It’s not just about finding his range, but also finding out if he can kick a cold ball in the wind. Over the past five seasons, the average scoring margin in postseason games is 10.8 points, so those points are at a premium. Getting a field goal before halftime and scoring a touchdown out of halftime can, and will, win a game… let alone a situation where Jake has to kick a game-winner.

Luckily, the last time Nick had one of these huge gaffes was in that Week 9 game, so it’s been a while and maybe he had a breakthrough. That being said, Nick’s an emotional guy. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Nick’s emotions show up in a playoff game. Hopefully, it’s not something with play calling and it’s just a new meme that makes every fan of every other team in the NFL hate him more.