Jan 15, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni stands on the sidelines during warm ups before a 2024 NFC wild card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

Reports: Eagles owner, coach Nick Sirianni to meet Friday

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and head coach Nick Sirianni are scheduled for their annual exit interview on Friday, according to multiple reports.

Sirianni, 34-17 in the regular season with the Eagles, will be asked to pitch Lurie on keeping his job, according to multiple reports, with anticipated mandates for changes at both coordinator positions.

Philadelphia’s season went up in flames with losses in six of the final seven games, the last of which was a lopsided 32-9 defeat at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC wild-card round Monday night.

Super Bowl runners-up last season, the Eagles were in the driver’s seat in the NFC and controlled the East division in mid-November. While the end result of 11 victories in 2023 signal a successful season for most, the unraveling in Philadelphia could prompt a harsh review from Lurie and team president Howie Roseman.

A peek in the rearview mirror offers a glimpse at Lurie’s mindset on such matters.

He made what he called a “tough, but unemotional decision” to fire Doug Pederson at the end of the 2020 season because he felt the future was brighter with a fresh start. He followed a similar instinct parting with Andy Reid in 2012 while describing the move as “extremely difficult” because of their close personal relationship.

“My first allegiance is what will be best for the Philadelphia Eagles and our fans for the next three, four, five years,” Lurie said shortly after firing Pederson. “It’s not based on does someone deserve to hold their job or deserve to get fired; that’s a different bar. Very few people probably after success deserve to lose their job. This is much more about the evaluation of whether the Eagles, moving forward, our best option is to have a new coach.”

Players lined up to go to bat for Sirianni on Wednesday.

Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox, who played for Reid and Pederson with the Eagles, passionately endorsed Sirianni in a heated exchange with media gathered around his locker.

Cox, who said he hadn’t decided whether to play another season, didn’t hesitate when asked whether Sirianni should be back in 2024.

“What is there to talk about? This man is a winner,” Cox said Wednesday. “He’s a winner head coach. Did we have some bumps this year? Yeah. But every team … goes through it.

“But we don’t look at firing a man who has won 10-plus games two years in a row … (made the playoffs) three years in a row. Have some respect. He’s a good leader for this team, and he does a really good job. Did we come up short? Yeah. Did things happen this year? Yeah.”

The Eagles lost five of their final six regular-season games, tumbling from possible No. 1 seed in the NFC to hitting the road for the postseason as a wild-card.

Sirianni said after the game he wasn’t thinking about his future, and players said Wednesday that job status and returning next season wasn’t discussed in a team meeting before they were dismissed to start the offseason.

“Think Nick’s a great coach, great head coach,” center Jason Kelce said. “Obviously nobody was good enough this year. I wasn’t, none of the players, none of the coaches were good enough down the stretch. That’s the reality of this business. It’s a collective thing.

“He does a lot of things structurally and organizationally that I think are really well done. Obviously we’ve got a lot of things to fix to improve the outlook of the offense in general, from my perspective, for next year, but I think very, very highly of Nick Sirianni.”

Kelce, who was drafted during Reid’s tenure and won a Super Bowl under Pederson, said reports of his retirement are premature, and he remains undecided about his NFL future.

–Field Level Media

Feb 6, 2023; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) speaks with media during Super Bowl Opening Night at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Eagles know payday near for QB Jalen Hurts

Jalen Hurts considers every game a chance to prove his worth, to the Philadelphia Eagles and every team that passed on the quarterback in his past.

Hurts, 16-1 this season and set to enter the final season of his contract in 2023, has already done more than enough to convince Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie that the former Alabama and Oklahoma quarterback is worth the investment.

“I don’t think he has anything to prove. He is an MVP-caliber quarterback, an incredible leader of the team on the field, off the field. He’s 24 years old, incredibly mature and, most importantly, driven to be even better,” Lurie said at Super Bowl LVII Opening Night on Monday. “What we’re seeing today I think is just the beginning for Jalen. This guy will attack every weakness as he has since high school, since college. The future is bright and very exciting for all of us.”

Hurts said he would consider his contract “later on” and wanted to keep the focus on the Eagles and the work he and the team put in to get to Glendale, Ariz., where the Kansas City Chiefs stand in the franchise’s way.

“We’ll kind of handle that later on,” Hurts said.

Every NFL team passed on Hurts at least once in the 2020 NFL Draft, which featured three quarterbacks among the top six selections — Joe Burrow (Bengals), Tua Tagovailoa (Dolphins) and Justin Herbert (Chargers). The Packers drafted Jordan Love 26th, 27 picks before Hurts was chosen.

When the Eagles drafted Hurts, it was on the heels of signing former first-round pick Carson Wentz to a four-year, $128 million extension. In 2021, general manager Howie Roseman made the call to move on from Wentz, trading him to the Indianapolis Colts to clear a path for Hurts.

Even when the Eagles went 9-8 last season and support for Hurts was far from unanimous, Roseman said at his season-ending press conference that Hurts had earned the No. 1 job for 2022.

A roster-building strategy of surrounding young quarterbacks with great talent while they are still relatively cheap — Hurts is owed $4.2 million in 2023, when Deshaun Watson (Browns), Dak Prescott (Cowboys) and Patrick Mahomes (Chiefs) have ’23 salary cap numbers over $48 million — isn’t new or novel. But the Eagles took advantage. Since drafting Hurts, the Eagles have also traded for Lions cornerback Darius Slay, Saints safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Titans wide receiver A.J. Brown. Before the trade deadline in October 2022, Roseman acquired defensive end Robert Quinn from the Bears.

Quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson said that plan was part of the franchise commitment to Hurts catapulting forward in 2022. Johnson said expectations have not been exceeded, but met in Hurts’ 35-TD season.

“You could tell right away,” Johnson said. “Jalen has always been very intentional and we were very, very intentional with what we wanted to improve coming into this season and he took that to heart. The way he works, and the way he is as a person, it’s not a surprise at all.”

–Field Level Media

Feb 4, 2018; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson (right) and owner Jeffrey Lurie celebrate a victory against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Report: Eagles owner ‘undecided’ on keeping Doug Pederson

Doug Pederson and owner Jeffrey Lurie will meet in Florida this week and the air of finality for the Philadelphia Eagles appears to be palpable.

ESPN reported the first meeting between coach and owner last week “did not go well” but that Lurie remains “undecided” on whether to retain Pederson.

Following the season-ending loss to the Washington Football Team, Pederson voiced confidence he was going to be back as head coach for a sixth season.

“I feel fully confident to be the head coach of the Eagles in 2021,” Pederson said. “The thing I’m most proud of this football team, we have been in the postseason three of the last five years since I’ve been here and that’s pretty good.”

Lurie reportedly has concerns that include Pederson’s plan to fix an offense that underperformed in 2020, the future at the quarterback position and the makeup of the coaching staff. The contracts of defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, senior offensive assistant Rich Scangarello and senior offensive consultant Marty Mornhinweg expired, and they will not be returning.

Pederson reportedly prefers to fill the offensive coordinator role with Press Taylor, the team’s 32-year-old quarterbacks coach. ESPN reports Lurie wants the position filled from outside the organization.

The Eagles’ offense ranked 24th in the NFL in yards per game (334.6), 26th in scoring (20.9 points) and 28th in passing yards (207.9). Pederson removed Carson Wentz as the starting quarterback after 12 games and replaced him with rookie Jalen Hurts.

Multiple outlets have reported Wentz wants time to determine where he stands on returning to the Eagles, despite being under contract. General manager Howie Roseman indicated the day after the season ended that trading Wentz wasn’t an option.

“When you have players like that, they’re like fingers on your hand,” Roseman said. “You can’t imagine that they’re not part of you, that they’re not here. That’s how we feel about Carson.”

Pederson led the Eagles to their only Super Bowl win in franchise history after the 2017 season, and he has a record of 42-37-1 in five seasons with the Eagles. Since the win over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, however, the Eagles are 22-25-1.

–Field Level Media