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Eagles

After a Day to Think About It, Nick Sirianni Goes More In-Depth on Jacksonville Decision Making

Matt Schultz

By Matt Schultz

Published:

Oct 11, 2026; Tottenham, ENG; Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni reacts during the first half against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

If you’re reading this website, you surely know that the Eagles lost to the Jaguars 19-17 on Sunday morning in disastrous fashion. Here’s how it happened in the final minute, as I wrote just after the game ended:

  • Down 16-14 and already well into field goal territory with 0:21 left in the game, Jalen Hurts throws a 7-yard completion to Makai Lemon, who goes out of bounds at the Jacksonville 27-yard line. This stopped the clock. Turned out to be a massive mistake.
  • On the next play, a 3rd and 3, Dameon Pierce rushes up the middle for a loss of 3 yards. Jacksonville uses their last timeout here to stop the clock at 0:12.
  • Jake Elliot drills a 48-yard field goal to give the Eagles the 17-16 lead, but because of the time management mistake (Lemon going out of bounds), they couldn’t milk the clock down to zero for this kick. After the made field goal, there was still :08 left on the clock.
  • On the ensuing kickoff, Jake Elliot boots a clean, short kick to Ameer Abdullah instead of kicking out of the end zone for a touchback or going with a squib.
  • Because of absolute dogshit kickoff coverage, Abdullah returns the ball 53 yards:
  • If the Eagles make the tackle earlier, Jacksonville wouldn’t have been in field goal range.
  • If the Eagles make the tackle two seconds later, the game clock would’ve run out.
  • They did neither. The Eagles brought Abdullah at the exact wrong time — with 0:01 left — at the Eagles 39-yard line, which makes for a 57-yard field goal attempt.
  • Cam Little hits the field goal and the Jags walk it off:

After the game, Nick Sirianni took ownership of the loss, saying he made a mistake by kicking the ball to Abdullah instead of having Elliot boot it out of the end zone for a touchback:

But after sleeping on it for a night, the Eagles head coach spoke more at length on his late-game decision making during his press availability on Monday. Most of it was pretty run-of-the-mill “We gotta be better, I gotta be better” stuff, but there were two quotes that jumped out to me as more than that —

The first noteworthy quote:

Q. After reviewing the sequence of plays before K Jake Elliott’s kick and then the ensuing kickoff, what are your takeaways? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: Leading up to Jake’s kick, we practice that situation every Wednesday. Every single Wednesday, we practice what we call two-minute to four-minute. It’s a little more complicated than I think people understand. My opinion is that people stop trying — you get to around the 35, you’re in range, and people stop trying to advance the ball forward. When you advance the ball forward, you make the kicker’s job easier. We are all trying to do our part to help each other be at their best. You guys can look up the percentages when the ball gets in certain spots on the field leaguewide.

Because if you don’t make the kick, nothing else really matters. So, in that situation, you’re trying to move the ball forward. Running it is an option, obviously, but with what Jacksonville was doing in that particular case, it wasn’t going to be an option. You saw what happened when we ran it on the third down. I never think that it’s something that you can say, ‘OK, I’m going to wait till third down to pass the ball.’ You have no idea how many times it’s going to take you to advance the ball a little bit more forward.

We didn’t get any yards and got an incomplete pass on the first play. We gained yards on the second play, and then on the third play, we ran it and lost yards there against a full-out pressure. You have to gauge what the defense is doing — I end up watching those situations each week and any two-minute to four-minute from a — Not only do we practice it, I’ll study those situations throughout the week, whatever I deem kind of came up that way in pro football. In my opinion, I think you see a lot of times teams take their foot off the gas there. Now, you’d love for the last play of the game to be your kick, but you’d also say, ‘Hey, if I can get that clock under 20 seconds, you’re accomplishing that as well.’ Leading into that last play, I said what I said yesterday. I stand by that. I did not make the decision that I wanted to make there in that particular case, and it cost us. There’s nothing else to be said about that.

But leading up to Jake’s kick, to answer your question, that’s my thought process there, to bring you inside that a little bit without giving too much information. That’s my thought process in that situation. I stand by what I did in that situation, had eight seconds left to go in the game once we gave the ball back to them, and that’s where my decision is that I regret what I did then after that. But to give them back the ball with eight seconds left, I think we did what we needed to do as an offense, and you obviously saw the success of Jake’s kick in that particular case.

He’s saying a lot of nonsense in there that doesn’t matter, but I do think the line I bolded is interesting: “In my opinion, I think you see a lot of times teams take their foot off the gas there.”

To me, this sounds like Nick is thinking a lot about being aggressive. And for good reason. So far this season, he’s been dinged a couple times for being passive, then dinged again later on after seemingly over-adjusting and taking on too much risk. The Bears game comes to mind there — in the third quarter, down 13 points, Nick punted on a crucial 4th and 1:

Then on the very next drive, he went for it on 4th and 6:

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to either decision; the advanced numbers said both calls were wrong. But from where I’m sitting, it seemed like Nick regretted playing it safe on 4th and 1 and tried making up for it on the next drive with a riskier play. And now, reading his quote about teams “taking their foot off the gas,” I wonder if that’s stuck with him, and is something he’s carrying this season: the intention to be more aggressive. Which I wouldn’t mind. Aggressive is good. The problem is that every time he makes an aggressive call, it seems to be gut-feeling-based, which is not good. It seems like he’s just winging it. And more often than not, whatever decision he makes is the wrong one.

The second quote:

Q. Using WR Makai Lemon’s late catch, where he got out of bounds and stopped the clock where it might’ve been advantageous for you guys to run more clock there and have him stay in bounds. As a head coach, how do you balance giving guys freedom to play the way they need to play and trusting them as professionals to do the right thing in those situations, but also, as you’ve said, taking responsibility for everything that goes on the field. I guess in a situation like you guys are in now where you have a lot of young guys, guys who are playing because other guys are injured, do you and your staff have to drill down more on certain things? Do you feel the need to do that because of where you guys are at? (Mike Sielski)

Nick Sirianni: It’s a good question, but I think if you’re saying, ‘Hey, we got these new guys in, and we’ve got to be even more detailed,’ then I didn’t do my job as good as I possibly could do it prior to that, if I’m answering your question. The parity in this league is so tight. We don’t go play a cupcake game to get ready for another game. That doesn’t happen in the NFL. How do I say this? I think every day, every situation and everything that we do is fourth-and-one. I really do believe that. We’ve got to do that on a daily basis.

In that particular case, us getting a new set of downs on a first down is a good thing. It would run the time down to be the last play, and the guy pushes him out on the route that we ran to get the ball out of our hands quickly in a Blitz Zero situation. The guy pushes him out of bounds in that situation, but he got himself closer to the first down there. Like I said, it didn’t work out. We gave them the ball back with eight seconds, and ideally in those situations, you want to try to give it to them back with no time. You ideally want it to be the last play of the game.

But to get it down to eight seconds, I thought the offense did what they were supposed to do. As I’ve explained to you guys, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do after that. I do believe the offense did everything they could do. Would we love for the kick to be the last situation? Obviously. It wasn’t in this particular case, but we got it under 10 seconds. That, to me, is not why we lost that game.

I think it’s interesting that Nick doesn’t seem to begrudge Lemon going out of bounds there. To refresh your memory, here’s the play:

After the game, a bunch of fans and media pointed at Lemon going out of bounds here as a big reason the Birds lost. I was among them. I thought it was brutal to go out of bounds there and stop the clock, a misstep that ultimately left Jacksonville 8 seconds to return the kickoff and kick the game-winning field goal. But it’s interesting to hear that Nick doesn’t see it that way.

Nick wanted that first down, Lemon was going for the first down, and it just didn’t work out. To be clear, I don’t agree with his thought process, but hearing him out definitely has me less mad about it. At least Nick was thinking. Good to know he’s doing that.

Matt Schultz
Matt Schultz

Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com