TAMPA, Fla. − On one side of the room, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts sat at his locker with offensive coordinator Brian Johnson next to him, engulfed in a deep conversation.
On the other side, de facto defensive coordinator Matt Patricia was giving a hug to defensive tackle Fletcher Cox.
And really, you couldn’t find a better symbol of what went wrong for the Eagles over the past seven weeks, when a 10-1 start crashed and burned into a 1-6 finish, culminating with the 32-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL wild card round Monday night.
The collapse was top-down. There was general manager Howie Roseman’s roster construction and patchwork fixing. There was head coach Nick Sirianni’s panicked move to replace defensive coordinator Sean Desai with Patricia.
There was Hurts’ uneven play, none more apparent than allowing himself to get tackled in the end zone for a safety on a 3rd-and-6 from the Eagles’ 14. At the time, the Eagles trailed 16-9. But the safety and the Buccaneers subsequent touchdown on a botched defensive play gave the Bucs a 25-9 lead.
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Sirianni tried hard not to blame Hurts.
‘It kind of swung the momentum there,’ Sirianni said. ‘He’s trying to make a play … You can’t really get excited when he makes game-changing plays and then crush him when something like that happens.’
If only Hurts had Sirianni’s back too. That he didn’t shows how likely Sirianni won’t be back.
If anything, that sequence showed that the Eagles’ collapse was a total team effort. And no one can escape unscathed. It’s just a question of how far Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie wants to go.
Sure, Lurie and Roseman could start with the coordinators. That’s easy enough. The defense finished the regular season 31st in pass defense, and Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield threw for 337 yards Monday. He would have thrown for more than 400 had his receivers not dropped a handful of passes.
Sure, James Bradberry was the poster child for the disaster. One year after being named All Pro, Bradberry was benched for a series after whiffing on tackling Trey Palmer after his short reception turned into a 56-yard touchdown.
‘That’s the one I’ll think about the most,’ Bradberry said.
But what about Sirianni?
Sirianni has a regular-season record of 34-17 and the best winning percentage in team history at .667. Sirianni is also the only coach in team history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first three seasons.
But it’s hard to overcome a 1-6 finish for a team that played in the Super Bowl barely 11 months ago.
There is one way Sirianni can survive. So far, Hurts has not thrown Sirianni a lifeline. And it would have been so easy for Hurts to do so.
After all, Lurie signed Hurts to a five-year extension worth as much as $255 million. If the quarterback wants the head coach to stay, then the quarterback can make that happen.
Instead, Hurts said this when he was asked if he wants Sirianni back: ‘I didn’t know he was going anywhere.’
Hurts was then told that there has been speculation about Sirianni’s job. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he replied.
Is Hurts confident that Sirianni can fix the situation? ‘I have a ton of confidence in everyone in this building,’ he said.
Notice, not once did Hurts say anything like: ‘That’s my coach. I want him back.’
Left tackle Jordan Mailata didn’t have any problem endorsing Hurts, for example, when asked if he still believes in the quarterback.
“One hundred twenty-five thousand percent,” Mailata said.
All of this comes on the heels of an ESPN report that there was a disconnect this season among Sirianni, Johnson and Hurts, all envisioning different things for the offense.
We saw that frustration often on the sidelines, whether it was a confrontation between Hurts and star receiver A.J. Brown in Week 2; or a late-game confrontation against the Giants on Dec. 25 with Sirianni, defensive line coach Jeremiah Washburn and DeVonta Smith.
Heck, there was a similar flareup between Hurts and Dallas Goedert early in the game Monday when Goedert was caught on camera saying some angry words to Hurts, who was sitting on the bench.
Afterwards, Goedert said it was his fault, that he missed a signal on a 3rd-and-2 pass that was supposed to go to Smith. Goedert said he ran the same deep route and the pass was batted away.
‘It could have been a big play to Smitty,’ Goedert said. ‘It was my fault. I missed a sign. I was a little frustrated with myself, not Jalen at all. Me and Jalen got a great relationship.’
That’s not an indictment on Hurts as much as it is to show that the disconnect was evident all season. That was when the Eagles were winning, and it was only magnified as the losing snowballed.
Sirianni has a large share of the blame. His offense was in disarray. And the defense was a disaster, and it only got worse after he made the switch to Patricia.
So how far does Lurie want to go?
Sirianni will certainly have to convince Lurie that Sirianni can fix the problems when they’ll meet this week. That will likely include coaching staff changes. After all, how can either Desai or Patricia come back next season? How can Johnson?
But how would Hurts react if Johnson, whom Hurts has known since Hurts was a toddler, is fired and Sirianni stays? And yes, Lurie has to take that into account with Hurts as the franchise quarterback.
If Hurts in fact regressed this season, like the statistics certainly indicate, then Lurie has to find a coaching staff that can get the most out of Hurts.
In 2022, Sirianni, offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, with Johnson as the quarterbacks coach, did that. Hurts was the runner up to Patrick Mahomes for the MVP and outplayed Mahomes in the Super Bowl in the Eagles’ 38-35 loss.
Even after Steichen left to become the Colts’ head coach, Hurts was well on his way to winning the award this season after the Eagles had back-to-back wins over the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills in late November, getting to 10-1.
Then everything fell apart. Can Sirianni fix it?
‘Yeah, we believe in ourselves,’ Sirianni said. ‘What gives me the confidence to think that we can fix it is because we believe in ourselves, and we’re in these seats at the top of our profession because we worked our ass off to get here.
‘I can promise you that nobody in that locker room (doubts themselves) even a little bit.’
It sure would help Sirianni’s chances to stay if Hurts felt that way about him, too.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.