Eagles coach Nick Sirianni fuels critics after a sloppy win with his sideline antics

| American Football | 10/15/2024

By Dan Gelston

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Nick Sirianni had the best protection in Philadelphia since Lane Johnson, Jason Kelce and Jason Peters anchored the Eagles’ offensive line in the 2017 Super Bowl season.

His kids.

Trying his best to deflect attention from his headline-grabbing taunting of Eagles fans in the waning moments of Sunday’s narrow win over Cleveland, Sirianni’s three young children tagged along with dad at the postgame news conference.

They squirmed and laughed when Sirianni dropped mild profanity and were mostly used as an excuse for the fourth-year coach to spend the bulk of his time talking about family rather than football.

The trash talk? The boos that tailed the Eagles into halftime? The “ Fire Nick!” chants that permeated pockets at Lincoln Financial Field?

Sirianni made it clear: He can pop off when he’s unhappy, but Eagles fans need to pipe down when they’re ticked off.

“We thrive off the crowd when they cheer for us. That’s all I’ll say,” Sirianni said. “When our crowd cheers for us, we thrive off of them. We hear them when they boo. We don’t necessarily like it. I don’t think that’s productive for anybody. When they cheer for us and we’ve got them rolling, we love it.”

With time to reflect on his shenanigans and absorb public criticism, Sirianni apologized Monday for his behavior.

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