The Eagles are 2-5 and heading into a game against a winless Detroit Lions team that could potentially end their season if they lose.
Speaking Wednesday, head coach Nick Sirianni shared the message he gave to the team to try to get them to stick together through these tough times — and it involved an analogy of a growing flower.
Here is Sirianni’s full quote:
"There's got to be a message that I have to keep everybody together and keep everybody sticking to what we really want to do. This is what I said to the team today is that I said the results aren't there right now, but what's going on here is that there's growth under the soil. I put a picture of a flower up, and it's coming through the ground, and the roots are growing out. The roots are continuing to grow out. Everybody wants to see results. Shoot, nobody wants to see results more than us, right? We want to see results too.
But it's really important that the foundation is being built and that the roots are growing out. And the only way the roots grow out every single day and they grow stronger and they grow better is if we all water, we all fertilize, we all do our part, each individual, each individual coach, each individual player, everybody in the building, that we do our part to water to make sure that, when it does pop out, it really pops out and it grows.
So that was my message today. Like I said to you guys before, I'm always thinking of different messages to give to the team that are either messages that I think really fit to the situation that I've gotten before in a situation from another head coach or from my dad or whatever. So that was my message today because we are going through tough times, and everybody wants to see results.
But just keep doing what we're doing, keep watering, and look at yourself first and know are you watering and are you fertilizing every day? So, when it's time to pop, it will pop."
Sirianni isn’t wrong — the Eagles are in a rebuilding year and in theory are laying the foundation for what they want to become. He is also correct that if they keep putting in good work that eventually the results will come.
The problem is that at 2-5, and the team looking even worse than their record indicates, you have to wonder how the flower analogy was received by players.
The Eagles do have some youth on the roster but they also have a pretty large collection of veterans. Some of those veterans have already not-so-subtly indicated some skepticism in the coaching staff. Is a picture of a flower growing in a team meeting going to inspire them to keep going — or make them even more skeptical of a young coaching staff?
We’ll start to find out this Sunday in Detroit.
You can reach Eliot Shorr-Parks on Twitter at @EliotShorrParks or email him at esp@94wip.com!