Eagles coach Nick Sirianni’s approach paid off in a Super Bowl run: ‘I’m not going to be someone I’m not’

Nick Sirianni stood on press box furniture at Arrowhead Stadium and celebrated like no one was watching.

The Eagles coach was a quality control assistant for the San Diego Chargers at the time, and the sting of Andy Reid letting him go the year before was still fresh enough for the 2013 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs to mean something extra for him.

So in the aftermath of the Chargers’ 41-38 victory that handed the Chiefs their second loss in 11 games, the passionate side of Sirianni took over.

Luckily for him, no one of record caught a glimpse.

“I was just so emotional about it,” Sirianni said last Saturday, recounting his reaction. “Shocker, right? If I was the head coach, I guess they would have seen that there and people would have been talking about that.”

Unlike that afternoon in 2013, the cameras have been on Sirianni plenty the last two years with the Eagles, particularly this season as he has led his team to Super Bowl LVII against Reid’s Chiefs this Sunday in Glendale, Ariz.

Sirianni’s passionate approach is uncommon in a profession that typically lauds stoic leadership and steadiness even in the face of chaos. It sometimes even stands in contrast to Jalen Hurts, who embodies many of those outwardly unemotional qualities, much to Sirianni’s admiration.

Sirianni has worked on being more steady – likening his sideline responsibilities to a flight attendant’s as passengers nervously watch their reaction to sudden turbulence. Still, Sirianni won’t take concealing his emotions too far. The quality he values most is authenticity, and denying the emotional part of himself would quarrel with being true to himself, for better or worse.

“I’m not going to be somebody who I’m not,” Sirianni said. “I’m going to have fun on the sideline. I’m going to yell and scream on the sideline. The moment that you’re somebody that you’re not – and it works for different people in many different ways – that’s just who I am. If I’m truly trying to build relationships with people and truly living by our core values and connecting, then I can’t be somebody I’m not.”

Sirianni has given the cameras plenty to work with this season in particular. He gave a point-blank, celebratory nod staring directly into one during the Eagles’ blowout win over the New York Giants in the divisional round of the playoffs last month. A little while later, a hot mic caught him chiding an official for erroneously corralling him from the goal line. A few months earlier, Sirianni had celebrated vindication for his mentor Frank Reich’s firing by Indianapolis after a 17-16 road win over the Colts, jumping on a bench to shout at fans before shedding tears in the tunnel.

It’s safe to say Sirianni’s unorthodox approach has paid dividends. Brandon Graham, one of three Eagles players to overlap with Reid, Chip Kelly, Doug Pederson, and now Sirianni, said it didn’t take long for him to buy into Sirianni’s leadership when he was hired.

The coach’s blunders during his introductory news conference and the reaction that followed it got Graham’s attention, but the way Sirianni handled the response won some of his players over.

“That press conference he had,” Graham said, “he did all the stuff, said all the wrong things. When y’all got on him, I just felt like he came into here and gave us his honest answer on how he felt about it. He was [ticked] about it. I love that, because a lot of coaches wouldn’t admit sometimes when the media gets under their skin.

“Sometimes you wear your emotions on your sleeve, which he does. But I think he does a great job of owning it and moving on, too.”

Sirianni’s approach has unsurprisingly elicited some detractors. When Giants defensive back Julian Love was asked about Sirianni’s style on NFL Network, he said Sirianni was “in for a free ride” because of the talent on the Eagles roster.

Graham and several other players came to Sirianni’s defense, but Sirianni didn’t refute the notion when asked about Love’s comments, instead pointing to the player-centric philosophy passed down by his mentors who coached in the high school and college ranks.

“The secret to good coaching,” Sirianni said, “is to get good players, put them in good positions to succeed, and help them get better. That’s what the secret to good coaching is.”

Part of Sirianni’s now-infamous introductory news conference was stressing the importance of building a scheme and culture around the players on the roster. For cornerback Darius Slay, that emphasis made buying-in easy during Sirianni’s first year.

“He had a lot of ideas about what’s best for the players,” Slay said. “Of course that’s what I’m all about, what’s best for the players. And that’s what helps us. That’s why you can fight for a guy like that, who actually cares for you and wants what is best for you.”

Press box celebrations aside, when Sirianni and Reid greet each other before Super Bowl LVII this Sunday, there won’t be any hard feelings. Reid’s decision to replace Sirianni as wide receivers coach with his longtime receivers coach/assistant head coach David Culley was understandable, even for Sirianni.

Reid replaced the majority of Romeo Crennel’s staff with preferred assistants like Culley once he took over. Reid was even kind about to Sirianni about the dismissal.

“He was very complimentary,” Sirianni said. “He knew I’d be down, so he gave me strength when I was down and I appreciated that.”

Reid said Chiefs executive vice president of communications, Ted Crews, gave Sirianni a strong recommendation while he was forming his staff, but the connection with Culley was too much to sway him.

“When I came here I was told Nick Sirianni [was] a really special coach,” Reid said. “But I had David. David was my assistant head coach, he had been with me for 14 years, so he was coming with me. I had to make that determination to keep Nick or not.”

The decision sent ripples through Sirianni’s personal life, though. His wife, then his fiancée, was from the area and about to experience the first unceremonious uprooting that awaits all coaches and their families at some point.

That sinking feeling still resonates with Sirianni as he looks back, but there’s more gratitude than grievance as he prepares for the Super Bowl, the first of his head-coaching career and the fourth in Eagles franchise history.

Why is he grateful?

Sirianni gestures toward the scar on one leg, the marks left from a surgery for an injury that ended his college football career but started his coaching career.

“If I didn’t go through one of my worst experiences in my life with my leg, then I know I wouldn’t be sitting in this seat today,” Sirianni said. “So I had to go through that. It’s the same thing here. Did I want to leave Kansas City? No. My future wife was from there … she had a nice teaching job there; she had all her friends there, her mom and dad were half an hour down the road, of course I didn’t want to leave.”