Nick Sirianni, Eagles’ Biggest Changes to Prioritize After Playoff Loss to Buccaneers

For much of the 2023 season, the Philadelphia Eagles looked like a team ready to defend its NFC crown. However, they started to slide in December and completed their collapse with a 32-9 playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday.

Philadelphia exited Week 12 with an NFL-best 10-1 record, and quarterback Jalen Hurts looked like an MVP front-runner. The Eagles then proceeded to lose five of six games and limp into the postseason as a wild-card team. Several issues factored into the Eagles’ late-season decline, and the Buccaneers took advantage of most of them in the Super Wild Card Weekend finale.

The Eagles remain one of the NFL’s most impressive teams on paper. They’re loaded with talent on both sides of the ball, and they’ve shown that they can reach the league’s biggest stage.

If Philadelphia hopes to get back to the Super Bowl in 2025, however, it needs to consider some significant offseason changes, and that could start with head coach Nick Sirianni.

To be fair, Sirianni’s job should be safe, considering he’s led Philly to the playoffs in all three of his seasons as head coach. Good coaches are hard to find and even harder to replace, but as ESPN’s Adam Schefter recently speculated, franchise owner Jeffrey Lurie might not accept conventional wisdom.

“The wild card to all of this, of course, is what does the owner Jeffrey Lurie think?” Schefter said on Sunday’s NFL Countdown. “And nobody really knows that. It’s not like he’s telling people, but if Lurie is unhappy with how this team shows out in the postseason, then it becomes an issue that could be worth tracking.”

Given the list of coaches who are available—notably, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, Mike Vrabel and Jim Harbaugh—Lurie will likely at least consider his options.

Belichick and Carroll have shown that they can win a Super Bowl with the type of talent that Philadelphia has. Harbaugh reached the big game in his second season the last time he was an NFL head coach.

Even up-and-coming candidates like Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and Houston Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik deserve some consideration.

The deciding factor might be Sirianni’s vision for the team.

When offensive coordinator Shane Steichen and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon were hired away in the offseason, Sirianni promoted Brian Johnson and Sean Desai. Those moves haven’t panned out, and Desai was replaced by Matt Patricia as the defensive play-caller in-season.

If Lurie and longtime general manager Howie Roseman lose faith in Sirianni’s ability to put together a successful staff, change should at least be considered. The same is true if the Eagles don’t believe he can get his team to refocus.

“A team source described what they believed to be “too much finger-pointing” among teammates on both sides of the ball and not enough focus on the collective good of the team, ESPN’s Tim McManus wrote on Monday.

The Eagles certainly didn’t appear to be on the same page against the Buccaneers on Monday night. That’s a problem.

If change is the only way to get Philadelphia back on a Super Bowl track, a coaching swap must at least be on the table.

When Philadelphia’s collapse began in Week 13, it started on the defensive side of the ball. Philadelphia’s stout defensive front started struggling against the run, and its secondary looked virtually lost more often than not.

The Eagles finished the regular season ranked 20th in yards allowed per rush, 31st in passing yards allowed and 30th in points allowed. The defensive issues were on full display against the Buccaneers—as was the team’s tendency to regularly miss tackles. Tampa finished with 426 yards of total offense on Monday.

It’s been a drastic shift from the 2022 season, which Philly finished ranked 24th in yards allowed per carry but first in pass defense and eighth in points allowed.

Perhaps handing play-calling duties over to Patricia and changing schemes in December wasn’t the best idea, and that’s on Sirianni. If the head coach is back, he needs to rectify the situation by finding a new defensive coordinator—though he wasn’t ready to discuss that option after Monday’s loss.

“That’s premature to talk through that,” Sirianni said, per NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano. “…[We’ll] get into all that. I’m not there yet.”

Gannon isn’t coming back after getting the top gig with the Arizona Cardinals, but some intriguing candidates are available. The list includes Atlanta Falcons assistant head coach Jerry Gray, Buffalo Bills senior defensive assistant Al Holcomb and Baltimore Ravens associate head coach and defensive line coach Anthony Weaver.

Philadelphia needs to make some significant personnel changes on defense, too, and we’ll get to that soon enough. However, change has to start at the top. Desai wasn’t an adequate replacement for Gannon, and Patricia hasn’t solved any of the biggest issues.

The Eagles have to hire someone who can.

Philadelphia wasn’t at full strength against the Buccaneers, and that can’t be ignored. Top receiver A.J. Brown was out with a knee injury, and Hurts played through a hand injury. No. 3 receiver Julio Jones also exited with a concussion.

However, the offense has had its fair share of issues since the beginning of December. It has often played well enough to keep games close, but it’s been a feast or famine based around Hurts’ legs and his ability to hit deep shots.

Johnson has struggled to find an answer for blitz-heavy defenses, and Hurts has rarely appeared comfortable in the pocket because of it. According to McManus, there appears to be a disconnect between Johnson, Hurts and Sirianni:

“Hurts’ desired direction for the offense has not materialized, which has been a source of disappointment for the franchise quarterback, according to a source with direct knowledge of Hurts’ thinking. A disconnect between the visions of Sirianni, Hurts and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson has affected the offense’s ability to land on an identity, the source said.”

A year ago, the Eagles offense was a physical unit that could impose its will up front, control the tempo with the ground game and burn creeping defenders with Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert. This year, it’s been a mishmash of concepts that hasn’t consistently worked.

The sheer amount of offensive talent carried Philadelphia early in the season, but it hasn’t over the last month-plus—and with Brown out on Monday, the offense didn’t even look like a playoff-caliber unit.

Johnson probably needs to go, and the Eagles have two options for replacing him. They could allow Sirianni to run the offense himself—assuming he stays—or turn to coordinator candidates like Greg Roman, Frank Reich, Carolina Panthers advisor Jim Caldwell and 49ers passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak.

The Eagles need a scheme that can generate offense when Brown and Smith aren’t open and one that can beat the blitz with the screen game. Right now, the Eagles are getting little of either.

Regardless of who is calling the offensive plays in 2024, the Eagles need to invest in a quality third wideout. Philadelphia has largely ignored the role, relying on the likes of Quez Watkins and Olamide Zaccheaus.

Jones was elevated from the practice squad in late October.

The problem with that previous plan is that it has made Philadelphia’s passing attack somewhat predictable. Defenses don’t seem to be as concerned with Hurts as a scrambling threat as they once were, and they’ve focused on pressuring the quarterback and shadowing Brown and Smith.

Philadelphia hasn’t had that dependable third option that can make opponents pay. Zachceaus finished the regular season third among Eagles wideouts with just 164 receiving yards.

On Monday, Jones had three catches for 22 yards before exiting, while Watkins and Zaccheaus combined for four catches and 17 yards. Running back D’Andre Swift was second on the team with 32 yards on four receptions.

With just $28.6 million in projected cap space, the Eagles aren’t in a great position to be chasing receivers in free agency, However, Roseman should be able to find a capable receiver in a 2024 draft class that is expected to be deep at the position.

The Bleacher Report Scouting Department listed 15 receivers among its top 100 players in its latest draft board.

Because the Eagles do have Brown and Smith, they don’t necessarily have to make receiver a top draft priority. However, a potential Day 2 prospect like Florida State’s Johnny Wilson or Georgia’s Ladd McConkey could really help the Eagles diversify their passing concepts.

Philadelphia’s biggest losses during the 2023 offseason came on defense. Roseman drafted Jalen Carter to help replace Javon Hargrave along the defensive line, but he took a more budget-oriented approach to replacing linebacker Kyzir White, linebacker T.J. Edwards, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and safety Marcus Epps.

In-season additions Shaquille Leonard and Kevin Byard didn’t really help.

Perhaps in retrospect, we shouldn’t have been surprised by the defense’s poor tackling at the second level and inability to corral receivers on the back end. On Monday, the Buccaneers gashed the Eagles defense for 307 passing yards and 119 rushing yards.

The blame doesn’t just reside with Philly’s linebackers and safeties, either. Cornerback James Bradberry, who played well in 2022, has become a liability. He finished the regular season allowing an opposing passer rating of 114.3 in coverage and ceded playing time to rookie Kelee Ringo during Monday’s loss.

Releasing Byard should be an easy decision, as it would save $13.5 million in cap space. Parting with Bradberry would be much trickier, as he has $17.2 million in dead money remaining on his contract. Even cutting him with a post-June 1 designation would only save $150,000 in cap space.

But the Eagles need to replace Bradberry, 31-year-old impending free agent Bradley Roby, Byard and other players in the back seven.

If Roseman can somehow generate enough cap space to be a major free-agency player, the Eagles should target the likes of linebacker Patrick Queen, cornerback Jaylon Johnson and safety Geno Stone.

Linebacker, cornerback and safety should also be prime targets in the 2024 draft. Philly is set to have three picks in the first two rounds—with an extra second-rounder coming from the New Orleans Saints—and it should use at least two of them to address the back of the defense.

Over the last two years, the Eagles have focused on building depth along the offensive and defensive lines. The back seven has been a bit of an afterthought, and it’s time for that to change. Bringing in a new defensive coordinator can only fix so much.