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Take It Til You Make It: Reporters Couldn’t Ask Tough Questions Because Nick Sirianni Brought His Kids to the Postgame Presser

Kyle Pagan

By Kyle Pagan

Published:

Nick Sirianni’s kids find themselves in the crosshairs of another reporter. We had Maggie Gray a couple years ago bitch about it on the radio. Now we have Mike Sielski from the Inky taking Sirianni to task because reporters couldn’t ask the hard questions after beating one of the worst teams in the NFL by only four points. Here’s Sielski getting dismantled by the smiles of Sirianni’s children:

He had jawed with Eagles fans and jawed with two Cleveland Browns players and heard faint “Fire Nick” chants from a few furious folks in the bleachers as his players trudged to the locker room at halftime. Now Nick Sirianni entered the Lincoln Financial Field postgame press conference room Sunday with his three children in tow — Jacob, Taylor, and Miles, all of them adorable, none of them more than 9 years old — and the only conclusion to draw from the scene was that those kids must be made of Kevlar.

The Browns are awful, 1-5 and with a starting quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who hasn’t been competent this season. Still, they almost pinned the kind of loss on the Eagles that can sink a season, and instead of acknowledging that there wasn’t much good about anything the Eagles had done, Sirianni delivered one tone-deaf response after another. It was as if he thought that no one had paid any attention to what had transpired for the previous three hours — and that no one was familiar with his track record of failure in quelling his emotions and staying clear-headed in the heat of a game.

Come on, Nick. Come on. In Sirianni’s mind, apparently everyone who covers or follows or roots for the Eagles is a leg, and he can soak them all and assure them that it’s just a passing rainstorm.

It was impossible to watch him on that dais — his kids smiling and squirming as he dropped a s— and an ass and smacked the table and monologued about the passion of a home crowd whose members spent most of the day sitting on their hands — and not see what was really going on.

This was an insult to everyone’s intelligence, an oh-so cynical maneuver from a coach whose team was fortunate to beat a bad opponent, a coach who tried to use the smallest and youngest members of his family to shield him from any pointed but appropriate questions, a coach whose future with the Eagles remains so uncertain.

“Instead of acknowledging that there wasn’t much good about anything the Eagles had done…” see this tells me Sielski saw Sirianni bring his kids into the press conference and IMMEDIATELY knew what he was going to write about. The Eagles didn’t do a lot good? The defense played out of their minds, DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown both had touchdowns in their first game back from injury, and Jalen Hurts didn’t turn the ball over. Those are all good things, but those don’t sell papers now do they, Mike?

Nobody takes themselves more seriously than sportswriters that feel like they can’t do their job.

If you can’t ask tough questions because Nick Sirianni has his kids at the press conference isn’t that more on you than it is on him? You ask hulking, 300-pound linemen that could rip you in half a question within an inch of their face. But Sirianni’s kids are too much of an obstacle for a reporter to overcome?

I don’t understand what we’re getting at here. And how many questions at a press conference do we realistically look back on and think, “You know what, I actually learned something from that.“? It’s just a bunch of canned answers, Jalen Hurts practicing a quote he read from his desk calendar, and a whole lot of nothing.

And it’s not like Sielski or Eagles reporters aren’t going to talk to him again three other times this week. If you think Nick’s canned answer of, “Just excited to get the win” wouldn’t have been said five times in 40 seconds if he didn’t have his kids with him I have beachfront property in Idaho I’d like to sell you:

And here’s another thing, Sielski asked Sirianni the question of why he brought his kids to the press conference and I thought he gave a great answer:

Seems a little unethical (weasel-like even) to write hundreds of words about the coach being an enraged buffoon not disciplined enough to control guys and then totally dismiss the answer about his kids because it doesn’t fit your narrative:

His children were sitting there with him on that dais, and he waxed on and on about his desire to share these wonderful, precious moments with them. And maybe if he talked long enough about family and football, everyone would forget how close his team had come to another collapse, how he’d created another embarrassing incident for himself, how he’d provided so much cause to wonder how long he’ll last as the Eagles’ head coach.

Sadly the only hope I have for this season is the players and Nick Sirianni go on a “Fuck you, nobody believes in us” tour. Maybe it’s against the media. They very well might be a mediocre team, but they could use something to all rally behind so it might as well be something they all collectively hate. The players said it themselves, they want the old Nick from 2022 back:

If the players want him back, then fuck the media if they don’t like the way he’s handling things. They don’t matter. All that matters is the guys in that locker room and the coaching staff. And this is the thing – you can’t have it both ways. You can’t love the cocky, “I know what I’m doing” Nick when he’s beating up on an opponent and then turn around and say it’s actually embarrassing for him to show emotion to Chiefs fans and our fans after some “Fire Nick” chants. I’d rather a guy be authentic and go down with the ship than change his demeanor because of what someone wrote in the paper. Which seems exactly like what he did and the players know that.

Now they want 2022 Nick back. Nobody in Philadelphia media dared to say anything publicly about Nick when he brought his kids to the podium after a win.

Kyle Pagan
Kyle Pagan

Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com

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