Nick Sirianni's curious comparison of the Eagles' 2024 and 2025 starts
Nick Sirianni's curious comparison of the Eagles' 2024 and 2025 starts originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
When we look back now at the 2024 season, the clear pivotal moment where the Eagles began to find themselves as a team was the Week 5 bye.
The Eagles sputtered through the first month of the season, hanging on for dear life to beat the Packers by five points in the opener inSao Paulo,then allowing a 70-yard touchdown drive in the final seconds to lose the home opener to a Falcons team that finished with a losing record, then winning by three points over by a Saints team that finished 5-12 , then getting blown out by 17 points in Tampa.
They were 2-2 and nobody was thinking Super Bowl. Then the bye week came along and the Eagles figured some things out.
They reshaped the offense around Saquon Barkley, moved Cooper DeJean into the starting lineup and became a different football team almostovernight. They went 12-1 the rest of the regular season and roared to the Super Bowl championship.
Here we are again at Week 5 and once again the Eagles have a lot of things to figure out.
They're 4-0 this year and not 2-2 and they're still a month from the bye. But just like last year going into Week 5, there's a lot of work to do.
We've got to play more consistent across the board so we put together a full game," Nick Sirianni said Monday. I look at our first four games this year, very similar to what our first four games were last year. You know, we've obviously played a very hard September schedule.
And coming out of September last year, it was a good opportunity for us to sit and say, Hey, what do we do good? What are we not doing so good?' And figure that out and get better from it and get better every day. Well, it's the same thing here. It's just we have a different record right now."
Sirianni talks all the time about how he wants his team playing its best football at the end of the year, and with the exception of the disastrous 2023 ending, they've done that. They went 6-1 in meaningful games to close 2021, they were 8-2 in their last 10 games heading into the Super Bowl in 2022 and they finished 16-1 last year after that 2-2 start.
When the Eagles came out of the bye they were 29thin defense and 21stin run defense, they had the 2nd-most turnovers and 5th-fewest takeaways and they had allowed the 6th-most 20-yard plays.
The rest of the regular season? They were first in defense (by more than 700 yards), fifth in run defense, they had the 2nd-fewest turnovers and 4th-most takeaways and they allowed the fewest 20-yard plays.
A total transformation. And they're 20-1 since.
It was interesting to hear Sirianni bring up last year because although there are a lot of similarities between this team and last year's team, he doesn't generally reference the past.
But it does make sense, and he said he expects a similar reversal in the upcoming weeks.
We have to have that same hunger, same humbleness that we had last year this year," he said. Not trying not to speak too much about different seasons, but that first month of the season you're figuring some things out because at the end of the day, you want to continue to play better, better, better so you're playing your best football at the end."
It will be interesting to see where the Eagles wind up, but through Week 4 - despite a 4-0 record - they're 27thin the NFL in offense, 24thin run defense, 19thin third-down defense, 28thin passing offense, tied for 26thin sacks, 17thin sacks allowed and 23rdin 20-yard plays.
Priorities? Getting Saquon Barkley going. Getting A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith going. Get the pass rush going. Stop giving up big plays. Improve against the run. Protect better.
A lot of things to clean up at every position, offensively, defensively, special teams," Sirianni said. And that's what (Monday) was about. (Sunday), we enjoyed it, today back to work, telling each other the truth in attempts to get better."