Unprompted, Howie Roseman listed Nick Sirianni’s responsibilities and accomplishments.
Normally, a head coach one year removed from winning a Super Bowl, who has taken his team to the title game twice, and to the postseason in each of his first five seasons, wouldn’t need to be publicly lionized by his general manager.
But these aren’t normal times and not in Philadelphia. The Eagles got bounced from the playoffs in the first round and the expectations that have risen from recent success — in part because of Sirianni — have helped foster a distorted reality that has been amplified by a culture increasingly shaped by contrarianism, algorithms, and conspiracy.
Roseman heard several questions about the Eagles’ next offensive coordinator when he felt compelled to jump in. He knew where the inquiry was going having sat in the same seat two years ago when Sirianni’s authority seemed diminished and he was asked essentially: What is it exactly that you do here?
The narrative that Sirianni was just a figurehead propped up by Roseman and his coordinators has hung over his tenure — even after winning a championship. But it gained steam again after he removed Kevin Patullo as coordinator on Tuesday, and the question of who will replace him and how much Sirianni will be involved in the offense remains unanswered.
There is truth to the notion that the selection of a pedigreed play-caller who has previously been a head coach — Mike McDaniel and Brian Daboll are among the top candidates on the list — will make Sirianni more powerless, perhaps put him on the hot seat as early as next season if things go poorly. Roseman might have been anticipating that narrative when he spoke on Sirianni’s behalf during Thursday’s end-of-season news conference.
“I’ve got a lot of things that I’d like to say about Coach and the job that he’s done here,” Roseman said.
He then proceeded to spell out what he thought Sirianni, as a CEO-type coach, was “elite” at doing: “Building connections with our team, … talking about fundamentals, game management, situational awareness, bringing the team together, holding people accountable.”
The GM continued: “When you’re looking for a head coach, those are really the job descriptions. As you’re building out a coaching staff, you’re talking about being able to do that, being able to have elite play callers on both sides of the ball, and when you think about how hard it is to find those three things and that we have one, I mean, we’re starting with a huge advantage.”
To Roseman’s point, it would be true to say neither McDaniel nor Daboll came remotely close to doing what Sirianni has done as head coach.
McDaniel, who was fired by the Miami Dolphins over a week ago, and Daboll, who was fired by the New York Giants in November, will get some interviews for one of nine head coach vacancies. But they are more likely to be coveted by teams in search of a coordinator.
How much Sirianni is willing to cede authority could dictate how attractive the Eagles job is to the prospective contenders. Roseman’s statement that the coach has given previous hires “the flexibility to put their own spin on things” made it obvious he would give as much autonomy as he does to defensive coordinator Vic Fangio — if need be.
Sirianni, for his part, didn’t divulge much about what he’s looking for and how much will change in terms of his involvement and a new scheme.
“Those decisions don’t have to be made for a long time and, as the head coach, you always have to be oversight of everything,” Sirianni said. “Again, this year obviously I got involved more on the offense as the end of the season came because that’s what I needed to do as the head football coach there. Many different ways to do it.
“I know that I want to be the head football coach and I think that that’s what the team needs.”
But even though he gave up play-calling midway through his first season as coach, and more of his system after coordinator Brian Johnson was fired two years ago and Kellen Moore was brought in as his replacement, the offense has remained relatively the same throughout.
At least since Sirianni decided to abandon some of the scheme he brought with him from Indianapolis and cater his offense more to quarterback Jalen Hurts’ skill set, which meant more emphasis on the run game.
The offense evolved over time and was most explosive in 2022 when the Eagles first reached the Super Bowl. But then-coordinator Shane Steichen left to take the Colts’ head job, and running it back again in 2023 didn’t work with Johnson at the controls.
Two years ago, when Sirianni sat in the same chair and was asked about the next coordinator and his involvement, he said there would be a “meshing” of systems. The Eagles hadn’t yet announced Moore’s hiring, but they had zeroed in on him.
This year, they aren’t as far along because the news conference came earlier than two years ago. They have also cast a wider net. Roseman will lead the search. Owner Jeffrey Lurie and his son Julian, recently appointed to a formal role within the organization, will also be in the interviews, per a team source. Sirianni will be in the meetings too, but it is apparent that the senior members of the front office will be making the final call.
There don’t appear to be any restrictions, but the Eagles will likely lean toward proven commodities. It has been suggested that they hire an offensive Fangio who no longer has head coaching aspirations because they previously lost Steichen and Moore to promotions.
“It’s a great compliment when guys get head coaching jobs from here because it means we’re having tremendous success,” Roseman said. “As much as you’d like to have continuity and would like to have guys here for a long period of time, we want to win. We have an urgency to win right now.”
But the offense clearly needs a reset. Two years ago, Sirianni said the offense had gotten “stale” and that he wanted to bring in “new ideas.” This year, he said the scheme needs to “evolve.” The Eagles were again at the lower end of being under center, using motion, and throwing over the middle of the field. They ran more hitch routes than any other team.
From 2022-24, they had one of the NFL’s best offenses, despite not necessarily being at the vanguard of modern offense. But they took a significant step back in 2025 for a variety of reasons. Patullo struggled as a play-caller, but he also took the brunt of the blame because he was the new piece.
Hurts and others got off easier. Sirianni and Roseman, as expected, mostly praised the quarterback when asked about his performance this season.
“We all had a hand in our offense this year,” Sirianni said. “Good, bad, you name it, we all had a hand in it. That’s every coach, every player, myself obviously at the front of that list.”
Sirianni said it would be “foolish” not to have Hurts involved in the coordinator search, but he also mentioned including other players in the same breath. Two of those players — wide receiver A.J. Brown and tackle Lane Johnson — may not even be on the roster for different reasons.
Roseman called Brown “a great player” when asked about trading the receiver who is still under contract, but he didn’t directly answer the question. And he declined to give an update on where Johnson, who turns 36 in May, stands on possible retirement.
Hurts isn’t going anywhere. He’s been the one main constant in the offense since the beginning. Any good coach revolves his schemes around his players, but never more so than at quarterback.
It’s unclear how much Hurts kept the offense from evolving this season — or even doing what it did well previously in terms of him running — but Sirianni said the 27-year-old quarterback will be open to change.
“I think you saw this year that he’s open to do a bunch,” he said. “We were under center probably more than we have been. Different motions, different things like that. Here’s what I’ll say: Jalen’s proved this to everybody, that he’ll do whatever it takes to win football games. Sometimes that’s throwing it a bunch, sometimes that’s running it a bunch, sometimes it’s him handing it off a bunch.
“He’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
But that was far from good enough this season, at least on the offensive side of the ball, despite the Eagles having the most expensive unit in the league. There will be a balancing of sorts in the offseason through the draft. The offensive line may undergo some retooling.
The defense will lose some parts, but young, homegrown talent will eventually need to be paid. Roseman, who like Sirianni had faced doubters despite winning a title, knows how to rebuild a roster. Both said the Eagles were in win-now mode.
But the GM knew what kind of pressure that would place upon the coach, who has yet to win over a vocal segment of the fan base, and even himself. So he offered a parting clarification.
“I think it’s important for our fans to understand, you can do whatever it takes to win now and still build for the future and still have those parallel paths,” Roseman said. “I just don’t want it to get confused that we can’t do whatever it takes to build a championship-caliber team next year and also continue to have really good players on this team for the future.
“I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page on that.”
Good luck with that.
