PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Your eyes are not deceiving you. The 2021 Philadelphia Eagles are not a good football team. Whether fans expected it or not, when a team is in a situation like this, the one thing everyone hopes for is improvement.
Rookie head coach Nick Sirianni sounds convinced there is, at least, that.
"We always want to improve our fundamentals," Sirianni told the media the day after losing 33-22 to the Las Vegas Raiders. "And we feel like we are getting better fundamentally and just knowing the scheme and knowing the system. When you're 2-5 you're gonna question a lot of things. Getting better, too, is not these drastic jumps. It's just little by little each day."
Are you scratching your head, too?
On Tuesday, Sirianni joined Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show for his weekly call-in. Cataldi asked the head coach about how much the Eagles are really learning from their mistakes.
Sirianni said they had more variety offensively in their loss to Las Vegas.
"I've believe we've been growing, and I see progress over and over and over again," Sirianni said. "If you look at the offense the other night, our last game there, you saw us under center more. You saw us with more play action. You saw us different looks to get Miles [Sanders] some touches. But at the same, still doing some of the fundamental things that we really believe in, like with the RPO game and the zone reads and the core concepts and the drop back passes.
"I definitely believe we're just continuing to learn what we do well on offense, what we do well on defense, what we do well on special teams, and trying to adapt to that. In my opinion, the offense did look different, and I believe that helped Jalen [Hurts] in a lot of aspects just being in that play action and running the ball a little more."
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Defense needs to 'challenge more'
It is much harder to argue that the Eagles are improving defensively, especially when opposing quarterbacks have such high completion percentages. Vegas' Derek Carr was 31 of 34 passing, which is 91%. That's way too high.
Sirianni, who says he has "100% trust" in defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and his staff, admits the defense needs to "challenge more."
"And that can mean a couple different things," Sirianni said. "That could mean you want to pressure more. That could also mean you want to play a little bit more man to man and get a little bit closer to the receivers.
"Any time a quarterback is 91% there, those are the couple of things that have to happen. And that starts with me. I have to get that in and say I want to challenge these guys more, and go from there."
Sirianni remains adamant that accountability starts with himself, and he insisted he is not pointing fingers at rookie defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
He hardly needs to with defensive tackle Fletcher Cox calling out the team's lack of aggressive calls on defense.
Sirianni told Cataldi he understood why Cox spoke out at his postgame press conference.
"I think what we have to understand, too, about this game is that it is so emotional," Sirianni said. "And so, those things happen. Obviously you would love for those conversations to always stay in house. I understand the frustration, and there's no doubt: Players like Fletch -- we've got to use their abilities. Because it's all about the players.
"Our job as coaches is to put these guys in position so their skill set shines, and when a player doesn't feel like that's happening, I understand the frustration. Fletch and I have talked and you want those things to stay in house and sometimes they don't and that's OK.
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Overall, the Eagles fell to 2-5 after losing 33-22 in Las Vegas to the Raiders. However, their schedule is among the easiest in the NFL, with remaining games against weaker opponents starting Sunday in Detroit against the winless Lions.
This is not the first time Sirianni or Gannon has said something about setting players up for success. The question, as ever, is: Will they follow through?
Or will players like Cox continue to struggle, leading to more losses and more frustration?