McCaffery: Nick Sirianni must show he can limit Eagles’ in-house gripes

Nick Sirianni didn’t rise to the top of the football coaching profession without being able to author a playbook, set a plan and, if necessary, adapt to changing circumstances.

Have the Eagles been passing too frequently? Fine. Retreat to the running game.

Have they been too permissive in the secondary? Fine. Design a more aggressive defense.

Are the right players given the proper playing time? Maybe. Just keep tinkering.

Situation for situation, game by game, Sirianni has shown a willingness to grow as an NFL coach, which is why the Eagles remain relevant 13 weeks into his challenging first season.

He will put in the time.

He will adjust.

At age 40, even as a rookie head coach, he is qualified to do that.

But what about the challenge that cannot be met with an extra six hours beside the film projector? What about so projecting an image as a leader that professional working men will accept his authority?

It’s the trickiest stunt in coaching, and not many pull it off without the occasional slip. Some coaches will rule the whiteboard, transforming twisty lines and letters into football works of art. Others will rule the meeting room, mesmerizing their players into believing the pitch.

Few can do both. That includes Sirianni.

By Sunday, when the Eagles would drop a significant game to the New York Giants, it would be DeVonta Smith’s turn to spray the head coach with some measure of professional disrespect. With reasonable football circumstances rendering Smith something of a decoy during an eleventh-hour drive, Jalen Reagor would serve as the No. 1 option for Jalen Hurts.

Though Reagor was unable to catch otherwise useful passes on the wasted possession, it didn’t make Sirianni’s decision wrong. Determined to muffle Smith in large part because they were still sore after being out-maneuvered by Howie Roseman on Draft Night, the Giants took away one option and Sirianni nicely transitioned to another.

That, apparently, drove Smith to turn the sideline into a suggestion box, as he was caught complaining to Sirianni.

“Yeah,” Sirianni said afterward. “He wants the ball in a critical situation like that. They were playing two-man in that scenario. They played in three snaps in a row. And so the type of play he wanted in that situation wasn’t going to be good.”

Sirianni should have left it right there, that’s unless he was willing to add that he would do the coaching, thank you very much, not a rookie with 12 games of NFL experience. Instead, he half-apologized for Smith.

“I love the fact that he wants the ball in crunch time,” he continued. “He wants it on his shoulders when the game is on the line. That’s what he’s telling me and I respect that. We had to do what we thought best with the coverages they were playing, and we didn’t execute.”

In a vacuum, Smith’s challenge was understandable. The Eagles were about to lose an important game and he was disappointed. In those situations, patience can vanish. But Smith’s public display of disappointment was not in a vacuum. Rather, it was the latest in a season-long pattern of Eagles openly challenging the coaches.

Fletcher Cox was the first to give it a go, using a 33-22 loss in Las Vegas to smear the staff, saying, “When you are used to playing aggressive over the last how-many years I’ve been playing, it’s just changed. You can’t be aggressive. You have to play what’s being called.” Two games later, it was Javon Hargrave’s turn when he responded to a 27-24 loss to the Chargers by volunteering that, “They were doing a lot of things we didn’t see on film.”

Cox is a franchise legend and a Super Bowl champion. Hargrave is a veteran whose voice is important in the room. And to the credit of Sirianni and his defensive assistant Jonathan Gannon, they adjusted to that criticism. The defense did become more aggressive. The offense did begin to rely less on the pass. And the Eagles won three of four to worm into cheap postseason contention.

Yet as soon as that trend was reversed and the Eagles were beaten in the Meadowlands, there was Sirianni made to rationalize why he was being challenged by one of his players. It’s one thing for Cox and Hargrave to offer a critique. But a rookie, even one who might have been open yet ignored on a critical late play?

“There are definitely things,” Sirianni said Monday, “that we can learn from that play.”

Sirianni should have learned one thing on that play. And that’s that he must use his status as one of the top 32 coaches in his profession to make it clear that he draws the plays and that they will work no matter what any of his players might imply.

If he can’t do that, he won’t be among those 32 for long.

Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com