PHILADELPHIA — If it’s any consolation, Nick and Howie are just as angry as you are. They’re stunned, and they’re sad and they’re hurting, too.
Four days after blowing a 10-point lead to Andy Reid and the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII, the Eagles head coach and general manager emerged from their mourning caves, blinked at the klieg lights, and vowed to climb all the way to the top of the mountain sooner than later.
“We got scarred. We got a scar on us. It’s gonna heal over time,” said Howie Roseman, quietly. “We’re going to do everything we can — everything in our power — to make sure we bring this city, our players, our staff what they deserve.”
Those are the most moving words he’s uttered in his 23 years of employment with the Eagles. He knows how you feel.
He knows that the fan base was gutted on Sunday night by what it perceived was a bad call, bad defensive coaching, and a bad playing field.
The Eagles fell three points short of a second Super Bowl win in five years. Losing to Reid, the best coach in Eagles history, only salted the wound.
“We were there. We were close,” said Nick Sirianni, Reid’s successor twice removed. “All that does is make me hungrier to get back.”
Neither Roseman nor Sirianni blamed the officials, defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, or the suspiciously slippery grass trays at State Farm Stadium, grass grown by George “The Sodfather” Toma, the 94-year-old Chiefs fan who bleeds red and gold and has worked every Super Bowl and who now, conveniently, will retire.
They didn’t blame anyone. They just want another shot.
“When you see the red and yellow confetti fall, and you get a piece of it stuck on your damn shirt ... ” Sirianni said, disgusted. It fuels him to think, “I’ve got to do everything I can do to help our guys get back into this moment.”
Sirianni was combative. He chewed his gum like it owed him money. He dismissed early questions about strategy — punting on fourth-and-short deep in his own territory, and kicking a field goal on fourth-and-medium — like an irritated father scolding his kids in the back seat.
Roseman, meanwhile, looked downright sinister, like Liam Neeson after the Albanians took his daughter.
They didn’t whine about the conditions: “Both teams played on the same field,” Roseman said, twice.
They didn’t whine about the late, obvious, holding penalty on James Bradberry. They didn’t whine about Gannon’s coaching.
Sirianni did make it clear that cornerbacks Darius Slay and Avonte Maddox screwed up on the first Chiefs’ motion-based touchdown pass in the second half, and that Bradberry and the coaches got wrong-footed on the second, a mirror-image play against an all-out Eagles blitz.
Sirianni also made clear that the Chiefs’ 65-yard punt return that set up a crucial touchdown would not get special teams coordinator Michael Clay fired, despite the units’ intermittent struggles this season: “Nothing is ever decided on one play. I have tremendous confidence in Coach Clay and how he’s improved.”
Mainly, Roseman and Sirianni credited the Chiefs, licked their wounds, and promised the next time will be different.
“We talk about climbing the mountain, one step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time,” Sirianni said. “And then, we slip right before we’re able to put our flag at the top of the mountain. All that does is make you more determined, driven to make that climb again.”
Then Sirianni dropped a weird, obscure Ivan Drago reference from Rocky IV, and he was back to being his goofy self, but only for a second, because then he got sad.
He thought about Gannon, now the head coach in Arizona, and former offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, now the head coach at Indianapolis. He thought about the pending departure of franchise greats like free agents Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox, the ever-possible retirement of Jason Kelce, and the unique roots his particular flower bed grew in his two seasons as Eagles coach.
“That is the last time this group of men will be together. Jonathan’s gone. Shane’s gone. Different things are gonna happen,” Sirianni said. “You always cherish that journey.”
Then, he almost cried.
Just like you.
