Nick Sirianni will continue proving he’s 2021’s best NFL head coaching hire

Hopefully, Nick Sirianni will, one day, be seen as one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history. He’s already the best of the 2021 NFL head-coaching hires (more on that in a sec). Maybe. when he’s won a couple of Super Bowls and he’s passed Andy Reid on the list of all-time wins, we’ll look back and talk about a time when everyone watched his introductory press conference and scratched their heads.

“What are we doing”? That was the question that we all asked at least once or twice, right after we performed a Google Search to answer our first question… “Who”?

“The Philadelphia Eagles simply don’t want to win”! Of course, that’s asinine to say, but that’s what we were telling ourselves. “If they wanted to win, why would they hire this guy”? Who knows? Maybe that’s what we were telling ourselves so, if things went haywire, we wouldn’t get too down because we had never gotten our hopes in the first place

Truthfully, a hire like Nick’s was one that we should have seen coming. It wouldn’t be in Jeffrey Lurie’s nature, our favorite chairman and CEO, to hire someone the rest of the NFL wanted, the ‘hot commodity’ per se. Philly’s brass wants to be seen as an organization that’s forward-thinking and trend-setting.

Now, that backfired when they went with the guy they plucked out of the NCAA (Chip Kelly), and maybe Chip is a bad example. He had some NFL buzz. You get where we’re coming from though.

After buying the team in 1994, Lurie went with Ray Rhodes. None of us saw that coming. That move brought fireworks early, but they fizzled.

Philly’s 20th head-coaching hire, though no one would believe this now, was also unexpected. That was the aforementioned Reid, who led this team for 14 seasons. Reid led to Chip. He got fired with one game remaining on the 2015 season, so Pat Shurmur led Philly for a game (and they won).

Doug Pederson was Philly’s next hire. Again, another shocker, so yes, when Nick Sirianni was announced as the man that would lead the Eagles into the future, no one should have been caught off guard. We just weren’t ready for the Birds to be right and for us to be wrong.

One year later, Nick has proven to be the best of the 2021 offseason head-coaching hires, and he should continue to be head and shoulders above his peers in 2022. How can we say that? We’re glad that you’ve asked!

Nick Sirianni was the only 2021 head-coaching hire to lead his team to the postseason, and he’ll be the only member of that bunch to get his team there to close the 2022-2023 NFL season.

You read the headline! Deal with it! The facts are the facts. During 2021’s NFL offseason, seven NFL teams hired new head coaches: the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Jets, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Detroit Lions, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Houston Texans.

CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora ranked Nick Sirianni’s hire as the third-best, behind Brandon Staley and Urban Meyer (LOL). Here’s how things worked out for everyone.

Brandon Staley, Chargers

In year one, Brandon Staley, someone who was rumored to have had no interest in the Eagles job because of a lack of desire to work with Howie Roseman, finished with a 9–8 record, a third-place finish in the AFC West, and he was eliminated from the postseason in his final game of the season by division-rival Las Vegas Raiders

The Chargers beat the Eagles by a 27-24 margin in Week 9.

Robert Saleh, Jets

Seen by many as one of the top candidates on their radar, Robert Saleh led the Jets to a 4-13 record, and a last-place finish in the AFC East in 2021. Despite a nice-looking offseason, they’re expected by many to finish in the cellar again this season.

Second-stringer Gardner Minshew and the Eagles dismantled the Jets in Week 13 by a score of 33-18.

Dan Campbell, Lions

The Lions looked like an improved team in 2021 and battled hard more often than not, but in the end, they’re still the Lions. They finished 3-13-1 in 2021 and were crushed by the Eagles in Week 8. The final score in that one was 44-6.

Arthur Smith, Falcons

Arthur Smith led his Atlanta Falcons to a 7-10 record and a third-place finish in the NFC South. They were beaten soundly by the Eagles in the season-opener, 32-6.

David Culley, Texans

Culley led Houston to a 4-13 finish in the AFC South in year one. The only team they finished ahead of in their division was, yes, the Jacksonville Jaguars before he was relieved of his duties on January 13th of 2022 citing “philosophical differences over the long-term direction and vision” with general manager Nick Caserio.

Urban Meyer, Jaguars

Urban Meyer, in what’s becoming a trend, bore the brunt of many jokes in 2021 both on and off of the field. We won’t get into his off-field indiscretions, which wound up being the majority of the reason for his undoing. We’ll just talk about how he performed as a football coach.

It wasn’t much better. Try a 3-14, last-place finish in 2021 on for size. Meyer wouldn’t make it to the finish line, however. He was fired after 13 games.

Verdict:

If you’re keeping score, Nick Sirianni was 3-1 versus rookie head coaches in 2021. His team outscored the Falcons, Lions, and Jets by a combined score of 109-30. He was the only rookie head coach to lead his team to the postseason.

We repeat… NICK SIRIANNI WAS THE BEST OF THE NFL’S HEAD-COACHING HIRES IN 2021! And, once we reach the end of the 2022-2023 NFL regular season, don’t be surprised when and if he’s the only second-year head coach to lead his team to the playoffs.

Robert Saleh is, more than likely, headed towards another last-place finish in the AFC East. Smith and the Falcons will be aided by playing in a weak NFC South, but they’ll continue to find themselves staring up at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Oh, and they just lost the best quarterback their franchise has ever seen. There isn’t much of a reason to get excited about the Lions.

The only man with a shot at getting his team to the postseason is Brandon Staley, but his team plays in the AFC West, the NFL’s toughest division, meaning he has to get past the Denver Broncos, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah… Good luck with that!