Eagles news: A sorry Sirianni, defensive snap counts, Jordan Mailata update

The Philadelphia Eagles are back in the win column, but when you only beat the worst team in the NFL by four points, there’s going to be news that comes out about it. If the head coach proceeds to act like a deranged wild card after that win, there’s going to be even more news.

So that’s what’s going on: There’s injury news, snap counts on the defensive line to look at, and then, of course, Nick Sirianni trying to salvage any semblance of normalcy that he can.

Eagles News: Jordan Mialata injury timeline

With a little less than 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Jordan Mailata went down with a hamstring injury, which is really really bad because he’s an All-Pro caliber left tackle. 

Normally, when Nick Sirianni gets asked about injuries, he’ll say something like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really want to get into that with you guys. You’ll learn whenever the injury report comes out.’ Those are some of his best answers because it’s not about his dumbfounding proclivity to insert himself in the offense.

When Nick spoke to the media on Monday, he was asked about Jordan Mailata’s return timeline, and he answered differently.

He said, “It looks like Jordan’s going to be out a couple weeks. We’ll see exactly how long it’s going to be. I don’t have that information yet exactly, all that…”

So… it must be pretty bad. You would hope that 24-ish hours after a game, there would be some kind of knowledge on when a player would return, but given that Mailata had to be carted off the field and the big ole sleeve and crutches that he had after the game, it kind of makes sense.

Nick started loosely talking about what some answers might be for a backup left tackle, “We’ve got some good ability to do different things because of the roster that Howie and his staff have built and the flexibility Coach Stoutland coaches the guys up with to be able to be multiple at different positions. So flexibility is there.”

Come next Sunday, three guys could be starting at left tackle: Fred Johnson, Tyler Steen, or Mekhi Becton.

Fred Johnson came in for Mailata after he went down, he came in for Lane Johnson at right tackle in Week 3, and he started at right tackle in Week 4. It’s more than likely that he’ll be starting in Week 7.

Tyler Steen has played a very limited number of snaps at either tackle (if any) in the NFL, but that was his position in college. He was second-team All-SEC in 2022 when he played at Alabama. It wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense if he started in Week 7, but at least he has familiarity with the position.

Mekhi Becton was drafted by the Jets to play left tackle but he ended up playing right tackle for them. He knows how to play in that spot and he’d probably be pretty good, but that move would shake up the entire offensive line. 

Jeff Stoutalnd doesn’t shake up the whole line if he doesn’t have to and moving your starting right guard to the left tackle is entirely avoidable. Becton at left tackle is the least probable of all these options.

Eagles News: Defensive snap counts

Through five games, it’s become abundantly clear that the Eagle’s defensive line is their most volatile group on defense. They’ve had three games where they’ve been relative non-factors and two games where they’ve taken over. 

With the amount of resources that have been put into the defensive line, they NEED to be taking over games, so let’s look at the snap count percentages for the defensive line in Week 6 and how they compare to the entire season and how they compare to the Eagles other dominant game in Week 3 (The numbers are coming Next Gen Stats and Pro Football Reference).

It’s good that Brandon Graham’s time on the field is going down. Yes, he’s been incredibly effective, but he’s 36 and he’s had his most productive season (2022 with 11 sacks) when he played 42.9 percent of the snaps. The more of a rotation he can get, the better.

That goes along with how Bryce Huff plays, and his performance against the Browns was his best of the season, BY FAR. He had half a sack, two tackles that both resulted in negative EPA, one quarterback pressure, and he had the fastest pass rush get-off time on the team (.81 seconds). Most importantly, he wasn’t a liability. It still feels like a long shot, but hopefully, he builds from that game.

Eagles News: Sirianni said he’s sorry

Nick started off his media availability with a quick apology for yelling at the fans after the game. He said, “I was trying to bring energy yesterday. Energy, enthusiasm. I’m sorry and disappointed at how my energy was directed at the end of the game. My energy should be all in on coaching, motivating, and celebrating with our guys. I have to have better wisdom and discernment of when to use that energy and that wasn’t the time.”

First of all: Sure. Whatever. Thanks for the apology that you were clearly forced to make. But let’s be abundantly clear here, when he said, “My energy should be all in on coaching, motivating, and celebrating with our guys,” he was two-thirds right. 

He should be motivating and celebrating with his guys. But by absolutely no means should he be trying to coach anyone, which is entirely counterintuitive of someone who is a head coach, but that’s where we are. 

The problem is that the damage has already been done: he has once again shown that he’s a real lunatic. We all know about him yelling at Chiefs fans after the Week 11 game in 2023. In that instance, it was recorded on someone’s phone and not on the broadcast. Since this was on the broadcast, everyone saw it and national outlets picked it up and ran with it.

Not good Nick … Not good at all. It’s hard to imagine Jeffery Lurie’s cool with his head coach making a scene and embarrassing the organization, more or less. It’s impressive that a guy can win a game to save his job, then immediately act like such an outrageous buffoon that it might actually hurt his chances of him keeping his job in the long term. Hats off to Nick for breaking new ground there.

The funnier thing that came out of this meeting with the media was when Nick was asked about whether or not it was a good idea for him to take the blame for every individual mishap, rather than just acknowledge that everything the team does is on him.

Nick said, “My name is on everything. I think it’s just the wisdom and discernment of when to do that and when not to do that. Unfortunately, there’s not a rulebook of how to be a head coach and how to handle different situations, but you try to do your best and handle each situation as it’s presented…” (7:15 in the video below)

Well, Nick, there are actually a hell of a lot of books written on how to be a head coach. It’s actually one of the more written-about subjects. This quote from Nick is actually kind of unsettling because this is not the first time that he’s said something referencing the lack of literature on a popular topic. 

If you remember back in the early offseason, there was a lot of discourse about whether or not Jalen Hurts was a good leader. At the press conference from the Combine, Nick Sirianni was asked about this, and he said, “There’s not a book on ‘This is how you lead’ right? People lead in different ways…” (14:35 in the video below)

There might actually be more books about leadership than any other subject ever. What a wild thing to say.

Now, reading books is for nerds and you don’t want your team’s head coach to be a book nerd, but you would still like for them to at least know books exist. You don’t have to be a reader to know that The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a real book. At this point, Nick is just showing his hand that he’s just a dumb dumb.