Nov 28, 2025; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni speaks with Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson after the game at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
There are a lot of things that go into coaching.
Managing personalities is a big part of it. Being a leader is another part of it. Controlling emotions and being able to make smart, rational decisions is there too.
But the most important aspects of coaching are strategy and instruction.
If there's any wonder about the 2025 Eagles inconsistency, just look at those two things, especially in comparison to their opponents the last five days.
Because, offensively, the Eagles' strategy has basically been nonexistent. The instruction part — which includes preparedness and discipline — is nearing extinction as it gets seemingly worse each week.
Losing to the Bears 24-15 on Friday was bad. Not because they shouldn't have lost to the Bears. Chicago is a decent team, obviously, at 9-3, but the way the Eagles lost it, in comparison to how the Bears won it.
In what was an example of good coaching, Chicago head coach Ben Johnson gave an encore performance to what Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer pulled out of his hat on the Eagles last Sunday.
Both head coaches, who call plays for their teams, had innovative offensive gameplans that were specifically designed to attack weaknesses they thought they found in the Eagles defense.
On Friday, Johnson attacked the Eagles with creative running schemes. Yes, D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai deserve a lot of credit for the hurting they put on the Eagles, but it was Johnson's offensive design that made the difference.
A lot of what he did was utilizing receivers in motion to create blocking leverage at the point of attack. On those plays, Swift and Monangai were easily getting a few yards before they were even touched.
Then, to keep the Eagles defense honest, Johnson would mix in a jet sweep, or a misdirection end around to try and pressure the edges of the Eagles defense.
OMG Ben Johnson got some of the best running schemes ever…
It worked. The Bears rushed for 281 yards against the Eagles. If that sounds like a lot, it is. It's been 52 years since anyone did that against the Eagles.
So, yeah, Johnson was creative.
Meanwhile, Sirianni, who doesn't call plays, and his embattled offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo — who does, but does a pretty poor job of it — ran the same, boring, vanilla, predictable, lame offense on the field that they have all season.
C.J. Gardner-Johnson didn’t use words to give his answer when asked by LeSean McCoy if the Eagles’ offense was predictable Friday. 😳
(Via @speakeasytlkshw)
pic.twitter.com/vQ4dSJ9oeB
In four games since their bye week, the Eagles have not scored more than 21 points in a game. And because of it, what once seemed a cakewalk to a second straight NFC East title is now an uncertainty.
Yes, some of this can be put on the players as well. It's always never just one or two people to be blamed when things go this awry.
Jalen Hurts looks below average as a quarterback right now. He misses so many throws. He's reluctant to make others. And then on Friday, he did something he rarely does, and that's turn the ball over - twice. One interception and one fumble.
Remember that endless debate about whether Hurts was a top-5 quarterback in the NFL over the summer? That case is certainly closed, now.
The offensive line is still a shell of itself. So much so that even the best offensive line coach in football — Jeff Stoutland — can't seem to get it rectified.
But when you are a coach, you have to take the responsibility more than anyone. Even when your players fail, you need to fall on the sword for the team.
And more than that, you need to have answers, solutions. You need to try something different — and by something different, I don't mean going for two when you are down nine, which Sirianni inexplicably did, all but ending any hope for a late-game rally against the Bears.
Richard Sherman has also had enough of Kevin Patullo👀👀
“(Nick) Sirianni, maybe get your wand out and find you a new offensive coordinator.”
(@NFLonPrime)pic.twitter.com/oUt8kxWxee
No, I mean a willingness to mix it up and try something different than what you are convinced is the right way to do something.
The reality is, Sirianni just doesn't seem to have that gene.
Oh, there was that one time last season, but had he not been convinced to switch to a run-heavy offense during the 2024 bye week, one has to wonder if he'd still be the coach today.
That was the lone change of his tenure that bore fruit — and boy did it ever, as it ended in a title.
But had that not happened, who knows where the Eagles would be right now.
And as an owner, Jeffrey Lurie has to start asking himself that question.
If this offense looks like garbage again, Jeffrey Lurie will need to consider making a change. Facts don't care about your feelings. Lurie shouldn't care about Sirianni's.
Rather than use the crutch of having won a championship last year, he has to look at this more in total. Consider one season a small sample size, but consider the past three seasons a better indicator of production.
(Yes, I know there was a Super Bowl appearance four years ago as well, but none of the starters on defense today were starters on that team, and 39 of the 53 players on the roster are different, so it seems long enough ago to not include them).
In the past three seasons, there's been:
For a coach that has gone to two Super Bowls in three years. I’m still not sure if Nick Sirianni is a good coach.
If Lurie isn't wondering if he has the right people in place at this point, then he's letting last season's championship still cloud his vision.
And that can't happen.
Yes, 2024 was memorable. It was perhaps the best team assembled in franchise history.
But once the calendar flipped to 2025, you could no longer make organization decisions based on that recent history alone.
And allegedly, the Eagles were doing that this year. Remember when they chose not to be on the field for the banner ceremony on Opening Night?
The owner needs to take the same approach now, and going forward.
Last year doesn't matter any more. If your coaches can't figure out what ails this team, and are dead set against doing something different than they've done to this point, then you have to wonder if they are the right fit to be leading the team going forward.
Yes, it would be a quick fall from grace, but if I'm Lurie today, I look at the next six weeks and convince myself that jobs are on the line on this coaching staff.
Either noticeable attempts to improve the failings of the 2025 team are made, or else somebody else will be making those decisions in 2026.
That's business, man. Pure and simple. It's cold. It's a "what have you done for me lately" mentality, but when you have the collected talent in the locker room that the Eagles have, you're paying some of them top dollar, and things are still this bad, that's the approach that must be employed.
It'd be different if the circumstances were something other than what we've seen. If, say, the team was riddled with one bad injury after another. Or the team was losing games in various ways each week that weren't as plainly obvious to the average fan.
Or if the coaches were honestly trotting out some new wrinkles in games to try to coerce different outcomes — especially on offense.
This isn't saying you need to fire someone this weekend, or even demote someone. In fact, to the chagrin of the masses, Sirianni said after the game that he won't be making that change.
Nick Sirianni: "We're not changing the play caller, but we will evaluate everything. This weekend, we'll have another little mini-bye. Another short week that leads to a long weekend where we'll evaluate everything. But again, like I said after that, it's never just about one…
"We're not changing the play caller, but we will evaluate everything," Sirianni told reporters. "This weekend, we'll have another little mini-bye. Another short week that leads to a long weekend where we'll evaluate everything. But again, like I said after that, it's never just about one person. You win as a team, you lose as a team, and you try to evaluate everything, win, lose or draw and get better from it."
Evaluation is fine. Action is what's necessary. Lurie needs to be proactive this week and it wouldn't be the worst idea to put people on notice.
Otherwise, your season is already lost.
And you can thank the Cowboys and Bears coaches for finally opening everyone's eyes to that, because right now, those teams are better run on the field than the Eagles are, and that's something that didn't seem possible three months ago.
