Nick Sirianni embraced adversity and found success to earn an Eagles contract extension
Ridiculed and scrutinized heavily at times, Sirianni expressed gratitude for the experiences that have led him to learn as Eagles coach and reach the mountaintop.
In the middle of his first season as head coach in 2021, Nick Sirianni waxed poetic about flowers, likening the gradual sprouting and blooming process to the growth of his floundering Eagles team.
Sirianni was ridiculed for the analogy at the time. But with scrutiny of the first-time NFL head coach came eventual success. On Tuesday, one day after the Eagles announced that Sirianni had agreed to terms on a multiyear contract extension, Jordan Mailata revisited the symbolism of the flower.
“I think about that time, his first press conference or second press conference, when he talked about the flower,” the offensive tackle said. “And now I just want to give him his flowers.”
Sirianni earned them, according to Jeffrey Lurie. The Eagles owner lauded him at the league meetings last month in Palm Beach, Fla., for his “outstanding job” leading the team for the last four seasons. He credited Sirianni for guiding the team out of a 2-2 rut last season before going 16-1 through the playoffs, culminating in the franchise‘s second Super Bowl victory.
Three months after their defeat of the Kansas City Chiefs in the championship game, the Eagles rewarded Sirianni in the form of an extension, the exact terms of which he declined to disclose.
Still, the 43-year-old head coach didn’t gloat about his most recent achievement to the detractors he has encountered throughout his Eagles tenure. All of his comments and behaviors that have been met with scrutiny over the years — from flower analogies to sideline antics — elicited a sense of gratitude from Sirianni in hindsight.
“I‘m grateful in the sense that it shapes you to who you are going to be, right?” Sirianni said. “God puts you through things, and he shapes you to who he wants you to be.”
» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni’s willingness to evolve earned him an extension. It’s the biggest reason the Eagles win.
Sirianni considers scrutiny as another form of adversity. Whenever he is asked about what it takes to be a successful head coach, he said he lists a pair of requirements: a strong work ethic and an ability to embrace adversity. At both team and individual levels, Sirianni has learned how to navigate tribulations and come out stronger on the other side.
“Everybody that is striving to reach the top of the mountain or whatever it is, like we try to do every single year, adversity is going to be there regardless,” Sirianni said. “And I really look at any adversity that I‘ve ever been through in my life, whether it was my leg injury in 2001, whether it was my dad going through cancer, whether it was us kind of falling apart at the end of the 2023 season and finishing 1-6.
”Every one of those things, whether it’s scrutiny from your first press conference, I can look at the good in all those things and find good in all those things, and how it’s shaped me to be who I am today, and has made me better as a result of it."
Jalen Hurts has had a front-row seat to Sirianni‘s growth. The Eagles quarterback became the full-time starter at the beginning of Sirianni‘s first season as head coach, in which the team went 9-8 and lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round.
Four years later, Sirianni has helped the team rack up far more wins than losses, posting a .706 regular-season winning percentage, the third-highest by a head coach in the Super Bowl era.
“Everything that he‘s been able to achieve and accomplish, he‘s earned,” Hurts said. “And just to see his evolution and his growth from my perspective and playing quarterback for him his whole entire tenure here, it’s been a great experience. It’s been a great ride. It’s been a lot of learning for the both of us and hopefully we‘re just getting started.”
Even though Sirianni is descending from the mountaintop with a Super Bowl ring and a contract extension in hand, he expressed that he doesn’t feel the need to manufacture a sense of adversity in order to thrive in the 2025 season. He acknowledged that there is always pressure in his profession, a feeling that is born from self-motivation.
Sirianni said he moved on from the Super Bowl “right away.” He pinpointed the errors that Super Bowl champions have made in the past when trying to repeat, whether they’re dwelling on their past accomplishments or jumping too far into the future about how to do it again.
In that infamous news conference, Sirianni spoke about slow and steady growth. Four years later, the Super Bowl champions are headed back to square one, where Sirianni will attempt to help them cultivate success once again.
“It’s really about the daily grind that you go through day in and day out,” Sirianni said. “And there‘s a mental toughness to being able to do that and go through that every single day. And so I want to do my job just to do what’s best for this football team.
“And make Mr. Lurie proud that he made the right decision and help these players continue to get better — and there‘s a new challenge with every team, of building the team. That’s what’s so cool about a season, that you start again and you’re right back to the beginning and going through the same steps that you went through in the beginning.”