Months removed from a Super Bowl rout of the Kansas City Chiefs, Nick Sirianni is secure as the Philadelphia Eagles head coach … officially. The team announced Monday that Sirianni agreed to a multi-year extension, tying the club’s championship leader to the City of Brotherly Love for the foreseeable future. It’s an unsurprising move given what occurred to close the 2024 NFL season, but it’s also a testament to Sirianni’s improbable ascent.
The clown of the town
Ridicule was a common theme of Nick Sirianni’s first steps with the Philadelphia Eagles. If Dan Campbell drew snickers for his colorful bravado during opening remarks as the Detroit Lions‘ coach in 2021, insisting his players would become so gritty they’d “bite a kneecap off” their opponents, Sirianni drew uncomfortable giggles of pity.
An unheralded, relatively unpolished candidate whose hiring at age 39 was delayed by the Eagles’ abrupt dismissal of Doug Pederson, their burnt-out Super Bowl-winning coach, the new guy wore wide eyes, fumbled his words and practically ran out of breath before a virtual audience, forced to take questions over Zoom as NFL teams upheld social-distancing measures during the COVID pandemic.
The internet reacted in predictably swift and merciless fashion, deeming the green Sirianni, who spent the previous three seasons as the Indianapolis Colts‘ offensive coordinator, unfit for the job. If he hadn’t spoken at all, his entry still would’ve earned widespread skepticism. Like Pederson before him, Sirianni didn’t interview with any other team for a head-coaching vacancy. In other words, only the Eagles wanted him.
And while team owner Jeffrey Lurie proved correct in identifying overlooked up-and-comers in both Pederson and Andy Reid, the pivot to a Sirianni-led rebuild felt particularly bold given the city had just lifted its first Lombardi Trophy four years earlier.
This was the guy Eagles fans were supposed to rally behind for a return to the promised land?
Funny enough, even after Sirianni quickly proved Lurie right in the win column, taking the Eagles to the playoffs in his debut season, then soaring to 14-3 alongside a dramatically improved Jalen Hurts in 2022, the criticism rained even harder from the outside. Now, instead of a miscast goof, Sirianni was a braggadocious bro, finding the cameras with his emphatic head-bobbing, finger-pointing and sideline high-stepping. With each passing victory, he further unveiled his true colors, wearing a young and apparently untamed heart on his sleeve.
Hurts, who was still in his early 20s, looked more like the buttoned-up boss of the organization, while Sirianni pranced around as if he still played the game himself. And casual fans who’d already disliked the Eagles for their loyal but aggressive following found in Sirianni yet another villainous representation of the city.
Sirianni, for what it’s worth, played into the caricature during the Eagles’ effortless march to Super Bowl LVII, which capped just his second season running the show. He openly sneered at opposing coaches when they made questionable calls across the sideline. He made showy first-down gestures when his players moved the chains. Hurts could even be seen tugging the coach’s arm down when he sprung it up in front of an official during the Super Bowl, flaunting a penalty in the Eagles’ favor.
And the brashness continued the next season, despite the sting of a narrow title-game defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs, in which his Eagles lost a 10-point third-quarter lead. At one point, Sirianni’s comments regarding the nearly unstoppable success of the Eagles’ “Tush Push” quarterback sneak circulated as evidence of a fast-inflating ego.
“People can’t do it like we can do it,” he said with a smile, before addressing the NFL at large. “They can’t do it like we can do it. … Like, if everybody could do it, everybody would do it. Where’s the camera? If everybody could do it, everybody would do it.”
Around the same time, Sirianni could be seen yelling at the top of his lungs in the tunnel to the Eagles’ locker room following a successful regular-season rematch with Kansas City: “Hey! I don’t hear shit anymore!” he roared to the sky, to the remaining Chiefs fans at Arrowhead Stadium, to anyone who would listen. “SEE YA!”
Before long, the Eagles fans who either tolerated or celebrated their leader’s public showmanship began to echo the outside skeptics. Because a personality like Sirianni’s can be propulsive and maybe even naughtily entertaining when all is well. But when the going gets tough, suddenly such an upfront and temperamental presence borders on grating and unprofessional.
The coach certainly appeared to lack an adult handle on the Eagles at the close of his third season, when a hard-fought 10-1 start quickly devolved into a 1-6 finish, marking one of the worst collapses in modern NFL history. During that time, hardly a single player looked pleased to be wearing green, and the effort and energy on the field followed suit. Between a sudden in-season swap of defensive play-callers and stale offensive design seemingly distrusted by Hurts himself, Sirianni’s Eagles looked dead on arrival in their first playoff game after the Super Bowl LVII defeat. Sure enough, they lost that one without a fight.
The team that had just been on the doorstep of glory suddenly seemed rotten at its core, with premium talent going to waste under an emotional but apparently directionless leader.
The exile that never was
By the time the 2024 offseason began, Sirianni had built a sterling 36-20 record over his first three years, including playoffs, and already taken the Eagles to a Super Bowl. And yet, given the degree to which he lacked answers or standard sideline decorum in his Super Bowl encore, many understandably wondered if Lurie might pull the plug right then and there.
If Pederson could be replaced over a difference in vision just a few years after bringing Philadelphia its first Lombardi, surely Sirianni could also be cut loose in the name of organizational maturity. An ESPN report linking the Eagles to longtime New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick added fuel to the fire, suggesting the axe might actually fall.
Lurie, however, stood pat. He took a birds-eye view, just as he did when hiring Sirianni and suggesting the Eagles were more interested in what the young coach could “become” than what he already was. Early that fall, Eagles fans were predictably locked and loaded, wasting no opportunity to condemn this recommitment. And initially, Sirianni seemed only to egg them on. His team fell behind 24-0 to the Buccaneers in Week 4, losing yet another blowout to Tampa Bay. And after a Week 6 win over the lowly Cleveland Browns to improve to 3-2, he could be seen gesturing and hollering, but this time at Eagles fans in his own stadium.
The coach took to the subsequent postgame news conference bearing a freshly buzzed head, his three young children by his side, and insisted with a quizzical attitude that he was “just having fun.” It was a sequence that embodied all that had quickly gone wrong with the Sirianni tenure, and it seemed destined to live on as the moment that marked the final spiral of his rapid and ridiculous tenure. Was the man even stable?
Funny enough, stability is all that followed.
While the external conversation focused specifically on how much longer Lurie could stand to have such an overt instigator as the face of his staff, the internal view was much different: Players didn’t resent this side of Sirianni that showed itself after the ugly Cleveland win. Rather, they encouraged it. They wanted more of it! Longtime defender Brandon Graham, practically a spokesperson for the franchise in his 15th season, admitted as much. But why? Why on Earth would he and other respected Eagles enable this seemingly amateur approach?
For one thing, being demonstrative has always been Sirianni’s gift. A former Division III wide receiver, he once showcased this as an assistant coach, well before his Eagles reign. While working a game out of the press box for D-II Indiana University of Pennsylvania, he lost connection to the sideline when the phones went down. Seconds later, fellow IUP assistant Paul Tortorella saw a man sprinting down the sidelines, accidentally drawing a flag for it. That man was Sirianni — then in his mid-20s, equally devoted to helping his team at all costs, even to the point of literally crossing a line. (Sirianni said before Super Bowl LVII he didn’t recall this specific moment but deferred to Tortorella’s memory: “If Coach Tort said I did that, I must have.”) Even confined to a headset, he operated as if he played for the team.
Though many doubted it, the Eagles learned to love that kind of childlike, all-systems-go, just-one-of-the-guys posture behind closed doors, even after the sour and admittedly humbling finish to the 2023 season. Because it wasn’t just for show on Sundays. And it wasn’t just brashness. It was an overflowing heart. Sometimes that manifested as uncontained excitement after a touchdown, but just as often it shone through in the quieter moments, when Sirianni instead poured directly into his colleagues while no one was watching.
Like when he essentially ceded control of the offense, his baby, to new coordinator Kellen Moore as a means of reconciling with Hurts in the meeting rooms. Or when he filled players’ lockers with handwritten letters of encouragement, praising linebacker Nakobe Dean‘s perseverance following multiple surgeries, or pep-talking cornerback Isaiah Rodgers ahead of his first game in two years. Or when he transformed his office into a check-in space for left tackle Jordan Mailata, whose father suffered a heart attack on the flight back from Super Bowl LVII; or long snapper Rick Lovato, who long battled infertility with his wife; or defensive lineman Milton Williams, whose mom endured treatment for breast cancer, as ESPN reported.
In real life, beyond football, Sirianni became a rock.
“He’s a great communicator,” All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson said later. “I think he’s accountable to us. Anything in the media that’s going around, he addresses it. Everything’s discussed. I think that’s why we’ve had a lot of success, because he’s open, he’s transparent, and [he] demands accountability, and that’s for everybody.”
Including himself.
Allowing Moore to become the new head of the offense was one choice. Turning the defense entirely to Vic Fangio, another new coordinator for 2024 and a former head coach himself, was another. Accepting and empowering Hurts in all the uniqueness of his personality was part of it, too: “It’s like fire and ice,” Mailata said of the unique coach-quarterback tandem, which rediscovered its footing as the season went on. “You got one cool, calm and collected, and you got one that brings the heat every time, brings the passion, brings the energy.”
Etched into history
By the time the Eagles clinched a return to the Super Bowl, rolling over the Washington Commanders in front of their home crowd for their 14th win in 15 games since the ballyhooed Browns incident, Sirianni’s standing with Philly fans had been redefined. Maybe, just maybe, this guy was part of the glue. Maybe, rather than holding the team’s all-star talent back, he was keeping them together. Late in the year, the Eagles released a video of a team meeting, in which Sirianni had the entire room close their eyes and visualize their best moments — where they were, what they were wearing, and finally, most importantly, which people helped them reach that moment. He then declared his operating principle for the group: “Sometimes you, sometimes me, always us.”
It was as if Sirianni was fulfilling the prophecy of his old college coach and mentor, Larry Kehres, who said upon Nick’s hiring that Sirianni’s greatest strength wasn’t necessarily game-planning or next-level innovation as much as uniting individuals, especially in the face of trouble: “Nick is gonna be good when there’s an issue,” Kehres said. “A health issue or personal issue or family issue, it doesn’t matter. One time he sent me a text about a young guy on one of the pro teams he was working with — a guy who’d suffered a series of injuries. He told me how discouraged this guy was, recalling how [Nick] needed the same kind of support when he was young. He understands.”
The passion for personal connection stemmed from Sirianni’s upbringing. His father, Fran, is a local legend in Jamestown, New York, his name gracing the athletic complex at Nick’s high school. Nick’s brother, Jay, spent 12 years coaching their same high school team. His other brother, Mike, went on to coach D-III Washington & Jefferson for decades. The family lived and breathed football, and with it, the day-in, day-out relationships of countless young men and their own families. And Amy, Nick’s mother, ensured the intimacy, the discipline, the selfless brotherhood carried over into the home.
“This is a strong family,” said Kehres, who had Sirianni as both a player and coach at the University of Mount Union. “They were raised strong Catholics, attending Mass every week. Whether those boys wanted to go to basketball or whatever, their mom had them there. If Nick goofed up in life, it would be his fault, all by himself. He brings so much from the family — character, poise, the ability to handle pressure, to say the right things at the right times.”
The emphasis on connection showed during the Eagles’ 2024 win streak, and slowly but surely, both the sting of the 2022 finish and the stink of the 2023 decline began washing away. Players were jovial and celebrating each other again; Saquon Barkley couldn’t help but wear big smiles after his weekly rushing bursts behind the best O-line of his career, and practically the entire defensive backfield, from rookie Quinyon Mitchell to veteran safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, made a weekly habit of end-zone dances while racking up the takeaways.
Sirianni, meanwhile, kept himself in check, funneling much of his energy from sideline taunts into shared celebration, ensuring he was one of the first to find his guys for a hug and a high-five (and maybe a little full-throated holler to the heavens, just for old times’ sake). It was a mere extension of the bond that had already been built inside the facilities, even as the curse of mighty expectation and the lingering scars of yesteryear remained beneath the surface, quietly threatening to derail the ride.
“Nick often talks about his relationships with other coaches in the city, and how he borrowed a strategy from [former Philadelphia 76ers coach] Doc Rivers to tell individuals his expectations in front of the whole team, while also talking about his own shortcomings in front of the whole team,” said Pete Sirianni, a member of Nick’s extended family. “Whether it’s the relationship with Hurts, handling an emotional Jalen Carter on the sideline or making sure the receivers are staying engaged when the team goes so run-heavy, that’s all stuff that gets handled in the locker room. … He’s a teacher at heart. Education is in his family.”
This also made a difference on the whiteboards and practice fields, where the coach strained for the mastery of fundamentals.
“The details are where games are won and lost and I think that’s super undervalued with this team, because the focus is always on the talent,” Pete Sirianni said, “but you hear it when he talks about telling defensive players to rip at the ball when an offensive player is coming up after falling down, or telling his own offensive players never to reach the ball because you can fumble. They show clips every week – the ‘teach tape’ – so they don’t replicate a mistake someone made in a college game. Everyone on that team is incredibly talented, but … teaching those little details are where you can get players incrementally better.”
Rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean confirmed as much, telling “The Pivot” podcast after the Super Bowl that “we sit in every single team meeting, after every practice, and go over the littlest details, whether it’s ball-handling, tucking the ball away, getting the wrist locked when you’re carrying the ball, alignments, motion.”
And that ultra-focused approach only resonated as well as it did because of the context: “He preaches being able to connect,” DeJean added. “It’s tough, when you’re in the NFL, and everybody’s got kids and families and everybody’s going home and going their separate ways, and you’re not really hanging out outside the building like you are in college, where you have your roommates who are on the … team. Really making it like a college environment within our … building has gone a long way for our team as well.”
Nick Sirianni, Super Bowl-winning head coach
When Sirianni manned the sidelines in Super Bowl LIX, facing one of the most accomplished coaches of all time in Andy Reid for the second time in three years, he had no need to pump up his Eagles with made-for-TV antics. No need to turn and holler at the fans in the stands. By that point, having already weathered the firestorm of criticism from all angles, the only thing left to do was be there for the people beside him — to let his players play, his coaches coach, and operate together, as one.
His Eagles proceeded to steamroll the Chiefs so swiftly, going up 27-0 before a deep shot from Hurts had Kansas City trailing by 34, that the Gatorade shower from A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith — two receivers who couldn’t have looked more frustrated by the team’s direction a year earlier — came with almost three minutes still on the clock.
There wasn’t even time for a Sirianni sideshow. This time, he strictly meant business. And the hiccups of the last 24 months, either self-inflicted or otherwise, ensured that when the cameras found him following one of the most dominant Super Bowl victories in recent memory, he didn’t bob his head or mock the Chiefs or high-step his way around the Superdome turf. He didn’t go right for the neck of all the nasty critics — the trolls who ripped his opening news conference, the fans who wore Eagles gear but wanted him out of a job, the experts who declared he brought nothing of substance to an already-loaded team. He simply beckoned to his wife, sniffling back tears, and scooped up his 4-year-old son, Miles, for a quick “E-A-G-L-E-S!” chant.
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And then, with all the world watching, and history forever changed to include his name as the Super Bowl-winning head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, the man who helped upset the NFL’s current dynasty, and the man who now led all active coaches in career win percentage, the 43-year-old Sirianni directed the spotlight away from himself.
“God’s blessed us very much,” he said, his eyes searching upward, hair still wet from the Gatorade. “He gave us all the talents to be able to get here. … And this is the ultimate team game. You can’t be great without the greatness of others. … Offense, defense, special teams, Howie getting us the guys, our coaching staff, these great players. We didn’t really ever care what anyone thought about how we won … All we wanted to do was win. That’s why we listened to ‘My Prerogative’ a little bit [this year].”
Twenty-five years earlier, when Reid first held Sirianni’s position atop the Eagles staff, a portion of Philadelphia had issued a cold welcome to Donovan McNabb, infamously booing the quarterback’s selection near the top of the 1999 draft. The fan base quickly came around, adopting the dual threat as the longtime face of the franchise … until the resentful tribes reemerged when McNabb repeatedly approached but never quite accomplished Super Bowl stardom.
Sirianni, it turns out, also faced the wrath of his own fans and came up just short when it mattered most, in Super Bowl LVII. Unlike the perpetually grinning McNabb, the young coach made a point to bark back, offering the loudest antagonists a taste of their own medicine. But as he reflected on getting over the hump following his second Super Bowl try, Sirianni echoed his tone from the night of the big win. Rather than dump on his doubters or downplay his own decline between big-game appearances or scold the Eagles fans for their harsh treatment of his slipups, he celebrated what the entire team endured.
“I think I look back on last year, and how last year ended, and I’m grateful,” he told reporters the morning after lifting the trophy. “As crazy as this sounds, I’m grateful [for] how last year ended, because it shaped us into who we are today, and where we’re standing today. … Through injuries, through ups and downs, through everything, when you embrace adversity, it does something to you. It does something to you personally. It does something to you as a team.”
There was nothing to ridicule now. Nothing at all.
From now on, Eagles fans with a bone to pick would have to reckon with any of Sirianni’s potential return fire like they would any pesky little brother. Because now, for certain, and forever, he was family.
This story is an excerpt from “Flying Through Fire: How the Super Bowl Champion Eagles Turned Failure into Fortune“ (2025), written by CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin.
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