The single most important quality for an NFL head coach is the ability to maximize the talent that you have at your disposal. It’s the one commonality among all the guys who are generally regarded as the elite of their profession. Andy Reid, Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, Sean McVay — their resumés don’t have a whole lot in common when it comes to work or life experience. What they share instead is a keen awareness of two critical pieces of information:
1. The things their players do well.
2. The things their players do not do well.
If that sounds laughably basic, look around the NFL sometime and count the coaches who have been unable to do the things that Nick Sirianni has done in his first 19 games with the Eagles. Look at Matt Rhule, whose Panthers looked the same as they always have in a stinker of a loss at home to Jacoby Brissett and the Browns. Look at the Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy, who has been getting the least of the talent at his disposal since his early days in Green Bay. And then look at Sirianni, who is pretty close to undefeated in the games that he should win over the last year-plus.
Sunday was another one. Sure, the Eagles left plenty of room for criticism in their 38-35 road win over the Detroit Lions in Week 1. But let’s not diminish the significance of the whole winning part. The Colts did not win their Week 1 game against the Texans. The Packers did not win their Week 1 game against the Vikings. Same goes for the Bengals and the 49ers. The Eagles? They are 1-0 for a second straight season.
Snicker all you want at the Lions. The point is that you are able to snicker. Because you root for a competent football team. And competence comes from the coach. It’s remarkable how many NFL coaching hires end up failing to establish even a basic level of competence. The Ben McAdoos, the Joe Judges, the Urban Meyers. Doug Pederson’s greatest strength is his competence. His Jaguars looked like a competent team on Sunday. They did not win. But they did not embarrass themselves.
If you think that’s a low bar, count your blessings.
Time will tell whether the Sirianni-Jalen Hurts combination can lead the Eagles to anything greater than a string of 10-win seasons and a divisional-round playoff exit. There is plenty of reason to be skeptical there. Sirianni faced some of that skepticism on Monday in his weekly day-after-game press conference. The specific line of questioning involved the punishment that Hurts took while running the ball 17 times for 90 yards and a touchdown. A few weeks after taking a big late hit in a preseason game against the Jets, Hurts was on the receiving end of a cheap shot from Lions safety Tracy Walker, who earned himself an ejection after taking a swing at some of Hurts’ teammates who’d expressed their displeasure with Walker.
It’s perfectly fair to wonder about the physical toll that such pounding will take on Hurts, who missed a game last year with an ankle injury that required offseason surgery to correct. We simply do not see NFL quarterbacks occupy the kind of role that Hurts has carved out in Sirianni’s offense. There have only been five quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era who have had even one game of 17-plus rush attempts. Cam Newton, Tim Tebow, and Bobby Douglass all did it once. Hurts has done it three times in less than two full seasons as a starter (Lamar Jackson has done it eight times).
Sirianni understands all of this. But he also understands who Hurts is as a player, and the offensive scheme that gives the Eagles the best chance to win games with that sort of player at quarterback.
“Obviously, I never want Jalen to take unnecessary hits, but we have to remember, too, what makes — one of the things that makes Jalen special,” Sirianni said. “That’s his ability to create when something is not there or when we have one more guy than we can block. ... You never want him to take too many hits, that’s for sure. But that is one thing that makes him special.”
Sirianni is right. Hurts is unique, and it only makes sense that he needs a unique offense to succeed. You saw Hurts’ limitations as a traditional drop-back passer throughout Sunday’s win. The batted balls, the low throws, the moments of indecision. He finished 18-for-32 for 243 yards. Of his 18 completions, 10 went to A.J. Brown.
Is that sustainable? Well, maybe not. There are times when watching the Eagles’ offense feels like watching a Wednesday night MAC football game. We saw what happened in the playoffs last year when the Eagles matched up with a top-tier NFL defense.
At the same time, what choice does Sirianni have?
I’m sure he understands there are some NFL traditionalists who might roll their eyes when they watch tape of the Eagles. But this is unquestionably the best way for them to win football games. If it turns out to have a short shelf life, they can move on to something new.
For now, though, Sirianni has come up with a game plan that maximizes the things that make Hurts better than replacement level and minimizes all of the things that make people question whether he can be a long-term first-division starter. And for the seventh time in the Eagles’ last 10 games, the result was a win.
