Eagles’ Nick Sirianni on working with Kellen Moore: ‘It’s going to be a really good match’

INDIANAPOLIS — If there was any inner anguish, any struggle of self-identity for Nick Sirianni following his first true staff overhaul as a head coach, he’s carrying himself like someone who’s long absorbed it and moved on.

The NFL Scouting Combine can be an easy place to project confidence. On Tuesday, Sirianni stood in front of reporters after a monthlong media silence having only just finalized a flowchart of new coaches whose forthcoming schemes are still just a collection of philosophies.

Sirianni didn’t (and perhaps couldn’t) offer any details about the offense he’ll build with Kellen Moore, the newly hired coordinator tasked with removing the staleness from a Sirianni-led system that stagnated during last season’s collapse. Sirianni only pitched the promise of a collaboration between two coaches who’ve led top 10 offenses within the last two seasons.

“He’s been highly successful, and we’ve been highly successful,” Sirianni said of Moore. “I’m really looking forward to meshing what he’s really done well with the things that we’ve done really well. Again, I think it’s going to be a really good match.”

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Sirianni’s inclusion of their past success downplays the setbacks they both experienced in 2023. The Philadelphia Eagles ranked in the top five in both scoring offense (28.2 points per game) and expected points added per play (0.07) during their 10-1 start, and it took only seven games for them to tumble into the teens in both categories. Moore, who coordinated the NFL’s fourth-best scoring offense with the Dallas Cowboys in 2022, took over a Los Angeles Chargers offense that regressed during a one-year tenure that essentially ended upon Brandon Staley’s firing (meanwhile, the Cowboys led the league in scoring).

They must reset their career trajectories together: Sirianni calling the shots for the Eagles, Moore calling the offensive plays. Sirianni’s rhetoric intimates that it’s less of a power restructure than it appears. He hasn’t called plays since giving those duties to former coordinator Shane Steichen midway through the 2021 season. But Sirianni still maintained control over a system he’s often called “my offense.” He retained his entire offensive staff following Steichen’s departure, and Sirianni promoted quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson, who called plays within the confines of Sirianni’s structure.

Sirianni’s newest staff changes revealed that he’ll still hold on to a substantial portion of his offense’s identity. Moore only brought along two other coaches from the Chargers — quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier and offensive assistant Kyle Valero — and Sirianni kept seven offensive coaches, including passing-game coordinator Kevin Patullo and run-game coordinator/offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland.

“We know those are really good coaches,” Sirianni said. “Have a lot of faith in them. It’s the meshing of two systems to grow in both systems and put the best product on the field. That’s why that’s kind of stayed similar because we’re going to be doing different things, but we’re also going to be doing things we’re successful at.”

This explains Sirianni’s palpable optimism. He hired Moore (and interviewed former Arizona Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury and Houston Texans quarterbacks coach Jerrod Johnson, and explored several other options) while maintaining the belief that an entire overhaul wasn’t warranted. He still held confidence in his involvement in the offense’s initial success in 2023, which meant his subsequent offseason quest for fresh ideas didn’t involve dramatic schematic soul-searching. Just someone who could offer another offensive perspective.

“(I was) excited about the opportunity to grow,” Sirianni told The Athletic. “You’ve always got to be growing in this league because there’s so many good coaches, there’s so many good players that you’ve got to be in constant growth.”

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Sirianni is only one of three head coaches retained by their NFL teams despite firing both coordinators during or after the 2023 season. Sean McDermott (Buffalo Bills) and Sirianni’s former Indianapolis Colts co-worker, Matt Eberflus (Chicago Bears), are also entering a 2024 cycle in which they’re attempting to prove they can stabilize success. Philadelphia’s brand of erraticism manifested in schematic and sideline meltdowns in which the broadcast cameras and talk radio-driven rumor mill focused, fairly or unfairly, on Sirianni, quarterback Jalen Hurts and wide receiver A.J. Brown.

Sirianni spoke as if both relationships remain stable. Brown, who personally called into WIP-FM last week to spar with their hosts, said, “I want to be here. I love where I’m at.” Sirianni, who grew up a fan of former Eagles Terrell Owens and Mike Quick, called Brown the “best receiver that’s been in Philadelphia.”

“He’s had the two most productive years ever as an Eagles wide receiver,” Sirianni said of Brown, whose yardage totals in 2022 (1,496) and 2023 (1,456) rank Nos. 1 and 2 within the team’s single-season record books. “When you have one of your best players being one of your best leaders, that’s special.”

Hurts, a Pro Bowl selection in 2022 and 2023, enters the offseason with a completely new quarterback coaching room in Moore and Nussmeier, and they’ll seek to supply him more answers against the blitz and taper down his career-high 15 interceptions last season.

“Here’s what I know about Jalen: Whatever we see that he needs to work on or that he sees he needs to work on, he’s going to get better at that,” Sirianni said. “He puts everything he has into it. That’s a form of leadership, too.”

However, Sirianni’s role as an offensive coach morphs with Moore’s addition — the head coach’s role as a manager remains the same. Sirianni once again acknowledged Tuesday that part of his personal growth is containing his composure and maintaining a culture that promotes calmness in high-pressure scenarios. He’s long laid out the core principles of his culture into five words or phrases — connect, compete, accountability, football IQ and fundamentals — that represent the fundamental beliefs he’s often clung to in moments of in-season crisis.

Sirianni said the Eagles “doubled down” on those principles in 2021, which helped turn a 3-6 start into an unlikely playoff berth. They “doubled down” on those principles again during their slide last season and, paired with the schematic issues, Sirianni said he may have erred by leaning “maybe a little bit into one and not enough into the other.”

Perhaps connect. Perhaps accountability.

“Those are all things that you evaluate at the end of the year,” Sirianni said. “I look forward to getting better. Like I said to you guys before, we’re not that far removed from having one of the best cultures that any of us had ever been around. There’s just some tweaks that we need to do.”

(Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)