The panic meter could be close to a 10 for Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni if he loses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday during Super Wild Card Weekend, according to NFL insider Dan Graziano.
During a Wednesday appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up,” Graziano suggested a loss to the Bucs could potentially be the final straw for Eagles ownership to cut bait with the third-year head coach, who took the team to the Super Bowl last season.
“I think if the organization decides it’s gotten bad there, you know, inside the building culturally, all that kind of thing (he could be fired)” Graziano said. “I think they’ve shown in the past that they’re not afraid to move on. Doug Pederson was just two years removed from winning the Super Bowl, which no other coach in the history of the organization has ever done, and they got rid of him because of the way that season ended. So, I think it’s worth keeping an eye on if things go very badly for them Monday night in Tampa and you’re looking at the last two months and going this is not it.”
Things started to go downhill for Sirianni not because of his coaching ability, per se — he’s 34-17 in three seasons with three straight playoff appearances, one division title and one Super Bowl appearance — but because of the building tension in the locker room between the Eagles players and the coaching staff.
Philly lost five of its last six games after starting the season 10-1, blowing a 2.5-game lead over the Dallas Cowboys and its chance to repeat as NFC East champions. During that span, the team stripped defensive coordinator Sean Desai of play-calling duties and handed them to senior defensive assistant Matt Patricia, and star receiver A.J. Brown refused to talk to reporters after back-to-back losses to the Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks in Weeks 14 and 15.
Safety Kevin Byard even went as far as to say Eagles players don’t keep things in-house and that leaking rumors to reporters was the cause of the divisiveness in the locker room.
Things got so bad that Brown even organized a team-building endeavor at an Escape Room and called a players-only meeting trying to get everyone on the same page with the coaching staff.
