The Super Bowl LIX Championship Ring is safely tucked away for Nick Sirianni as he enters the NovaCare Complex in the early morning hours, his focus only on the day ahead. What his Philadelphia Eagles accomplished in the 2024 season was truly special – 18 victories, including 16 wins in their final 17 games, the last of which was a 40-22 domination of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX – but that thought is far from top of mind for the fifth-year leader.
Winning the day in the manner he wants – tough, detailed, together – is all that matters for Sirianni as the Eagles begin the climb in the 2025 campaign.
It's on, with all of the focus in front of the team and one goal for all: Winning. Just winning. Sustaining the success. Taking it a step beyond.
Dawg Mentality.
"I remember one coach compared it to, like, playing pickup basketball. You don't play a pickup basketball game, win a pickup basketball game, and go, 'Alright, I'm satisfied.' No, you're like, 'Run that (expletive) back. Let's play again.' And like, that's in your DNA," Sirianni said. "And I don't know, I think that that's just something in your DNA that you don't turn off, that you're satisfied after you win, it's in your DNA to say, 'Run it back. Let's play again. Let's play again.' And it's just not something that turns off."
The Eagles aren't running it back, per se. They have made significant changes to the roster, particularly on the defensive side of the football, and they understand that every season is new unto itself. The goal right now is to have a successful Training Camp and to find the best 53 players (and practice squad) to compete in 2025. There is talk only of that: Improve the little things every day and understand the improvement that comes with that.
So, for somebody like Sirianni – a head coach who has been in the playoffs in each of his four seasons here, with two Super Bowl appearances, and an all-time top-of-the-charts winning percentage – so much is about teaching and learning and applying technique.
"Our job as coaches is, one is to put them in position to succeed, but the other is they're getting better fundamentally, because when they get better fundamentally, now there's talent, right?," he said. "Your talent really shines when you're playing really well, fundamentally, whether it's (Linebackers Coach) Bobby King teaching block destruction on an everyday basis, of how these guys think it really shows up on tape. Or, you know, (Passing Game Coordinator/Defensive Backs Coach) Christian Parker teaching how to take the football away, or (Running Backs/Assistant Head Coach) Jemal Singleton how to protect the football, or anything like that.
"So obviously, the players that we had play as young players last year played phenomenal, and then, you know, our coaches did a really good job of developing the guys to play phenomenal.
"And you know, we're excited about the young group of guys that we have in this year, but they're going to have to go out like to say to a guy, 'Hey, you have this job because you're young.' We're not. We're not doing what's best for the team, you know. And now, if you're saying to a guy, 'Hey, go compete your butt off to win this job,' that's what's best for the football team. That competition will bring everybody up and make everyone better."
That is the mindset. That is all that matters. The message is to master the task at hand. Nothing is going to be given to the Eagles in 2025 – if anything, things will be more difficult as the "team to beat." The Eagles will get every team's best shot. They know it. They are the hunted team.
And that plays right into the mindset of a player like quarterback Jalen Hurts. The franchise face and his list of achievements to this point in his career are impressive. What does that matter to him?
He, like Sirianni, is far beyond Super Bowl LIX. Hurts said he celebrated for only a few days in the post-Super Bowl weeks prior to Friday night's ring ceremony, and he is locked in for Training Camp. The two of them – the head coach and the quarterback – have been in that lockstep-kind of thinking from the jump and they are here again ready to climb the mountain.
"I see Jalen and all our guys locked into the daily work," Sirianni said. "We've had great attendance here throughout all offseason workouts. We've gotten great work. These guys have pushed each other hard in the weight room. They've worked hard to connect. They've worked hard on the practice field. I just see them solely focused on what we can do to get ready for the next day and for that day, and if you stay the same too, like, if we do everything exactly the same as we did last year, then you don't get better. That doesn't work either.
"Right now, obviously we had a good formula to be able to do what we did, but I look at some of the teams, like, for instance, we talk about taking the football away and protecting the football. Well, I promise you, the other teams are going to be like, 'Yeah, we got to protect the football against them.' So, we better be even better at taking it away and protecting it."
The basics. The fundamentals. All over again. The team changes and the message is tweaked, but the underlying principles remain the same. The formula for winning in the NFL doesn't change. The Eagles have challenges here – new personnel, jobs open, a new offensive coordinator in Kevin Patullo – and Sirianni is the one leading the charge.
Year 5 is upon us with everything in front of the Philadelphia Eagles. That's just the way Sirianni likes it. That's just the way he needs it. All eyes are directed forward, one day at a time.
