DID BARKLEY AND HURTS RESCUE SIRIANNI’S JOB? ACTUALLY, HOWIE ROSEMAN DID
When the Eagles pondered firing the coach last season, the general manager was brilliant again, signing Barkley and Zack Baun as the man who might be recalled for producing another Super Bowl title
In a town where a stumbling football team is viewed as a global thermonuclear war, Nick Sirianni almost lost his job last winter. When in doubt, fire the coach and reconnect with the quarterback. Jalen Hurts wouldn’t answer questions about their relationship, prompting an ESPN commentator to call Sirianni “a clown.” Could you imagine an Italian dude, in the heart of South Philadelphia, thrown out with the red sauce?
Could you imagine a joyful burial for a man only months removed from a close loss in the Super Bowl, only years removed from what he called “a f—ing terrible introduction” when he struggled to convey opening thoughts? Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s King of Steaks couldn’t help him?
But in came Howie Roseman. It was his dream to run the Eagles since his 2000 unpaid internship, and though he won a Super Bowl in 2018, what was this mess? He once fought with Chip Kelly and temporarily lost his power. Would the owner, Jeffrey Lurie, lose faith again? An entire franchise couldn’t collapse with six losses in the last seven games, and stalwart Jason Kelce retired for a media career with wife Kylie. How could the executive vice president and general manager rescue Sirianni?
He signed Saquon Barkley.
All he needed was $37.75 million, the going rate in a market that discredits running backs. The decision last March might push the Eagles to their second championship on Sunday night. With Barkley all but crushing rushing records and turning on the masses with his backward hurdle — excuse me, I’m watching it again — he gave Hurts a welcome security blanket in a run-oriented scheme. This is the ideal offense to petrify the Kansas City Chiefs and their expert defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo. Now look at Sirianni, who has the fifth-best winning percentage in NFL history — 48-20, at .706 — and what he says 13 months since his gig almost swallowed him.
“Anything you’ve done, anything you’ve thought about doing, anything you look at and say, ‘Man, could Saquon do this?’ The answer is yes, mostly,” Sirianni said.
“Not mostly. Always.”
And how did Roseman know, outbidding the Chicago Bears in one of the biggest deals in league history and sending the New York Giants into infamy? “Not a hard trigger to pull. I was extremely confident in the player and the person,” he said. “I’d like to say Saquon has exceeded expectations, but he’s always been one of the best players I’ve ever seen when I’ve watched him. And I’ve always known about what kind of person he is because it’s not hard to find that out. So, I’m really not surprised by any of this. And I don’t say that in an arrogant way. Nothing to do with me. I’m just glad everyone gets to see that. I would just say the person is as good as the player, and I’m not downplaying the player. And that to me makes me proud.”
There you have it, a GM protecting an embattled head coach with the brightest move imaginable and removing pressure from Hurts. Roseman also signed linebacker Zack Baun and watched him become a finalist for NFL Defensive Player of the Year. This is what we should demand from sports franchises when they suck. If the Eagles win, the question is whether Barkley or Hurts will have the bigger game. Doesn’t matter. Let Roseman have the trophy.
“When you work in Philly, you know you’re one step away from banners flying over stadiums, saying ‘Fire Howie!’ So I think that you gotta be humble,” he said. “You have to keep your head down. All that matters is winning. I said this to Nick when we hired him: ‘You win or lose.’ At the end of the day, nothing else matters. I can explain my bad moves and the reasoning behind them and the rationale that I think I had. Nobody cares. You’re judged by your record and you’re judged by the success of that. And I’m OK with that.”
Andy Reid, who used to work with the Eagles, speaks magnificently about him. “I’m a Howie Roseman fan,” said the Chiefs coach. “I think he does a great job. The way he’s replenished this football team has been something to watch, for sure. He believes in the offensive, defensive line, you start there — and if they’re not functioning right, your team’s not functioning right. That’s the way he has built that team and you can see that in their strengths there.”
Ask Hurts, who is emboldened by improved correspondence with Sirianni. It’s another element of Roseman-inspired success. “I’m happy and fortunate that we were able to come together in harmony and have the same goal in mind, trying to get this thing right,” Hurts said. “I got a ton of confidence in him, a ton of confidence in what he brings and everything he's been able to accomplish.”
He’s the son of a coach, Averion, and once bolted Nick Saban when he was benched for Tua Tagovailoa in a national championship game. Hurts is intense. He makes much more money than Barkley — $255 million for five years — and he is known to say, “Money is nice — championships are much better.” He threw for 300 yards only once this season, despite the presence of top-line receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown. Yet he won 17 games. Against Washington in the NFC title game, he accounted for four scores. “That’s what the f— I do!" Hurts shouted on the sideline as he gave Sirianni a high five. Some think he can repeat his 2023 performance against the Chiefs — when he had 304 yards passing and created four touchdowns. The 38-35 loss still burns.
“I've learned so much. It's had a great driving force. It lit a flame, lit a fire in me, and to have this opportunity again is exactly what you work for,” Hurts said. “I don’t play the game for numbers, any statistical approval from anyone else, and I understand that everyone has a preconceived notion on how they want it to look, or how they expected it to look. But I’ve told you guys that success … it’s all relative to the person, and what I define (success) as is winning. And so my one goal is always to come out here and win.
“I think it’s just the determination, the will to work, the will to win. It’s something that’s been a constant throughout my journey, and I think that’s something my parents instilled into me. When I put my eyes on something, I’m not stopping until I get it. It takes great perseverance, it takes a mentality and it takes a person who has high values and high character. But all of it has to come together.”
Of all people, Sirianni is the quarterback’s biggest supporter. “I don't want anybody else leading this team at quarterback other than him. He's a winner,” he said. “He deals with so much criticism, which just blows my mind because of the questions I have to answer ... it's just like, man, this guy wins. He's won his entire life.
“I can’t quite comprehend it because it doesn’t look like what people think it should look like. But the guy has been clutch. He’s won a ton of football games. ‘But you ran for this many yards.’ We don’t care how we win. We don’t care. If we rush for 300 and pass for one and we win, great. If we rush for one and pass for 300, great. Who cares? We’ve just continued to win. He’s just continued to win. I think the criticism is. ... yeah, whatever. He just wins.”
So does Sirianni. So does Barkley. So does Roseman. A quartet of men came together and scored a record 55 points in the NFC title game. “This game is about overcoming adversity,” Sirianni said. “There are going to be good plays in the game and there are going to be bad plays in the game. There will be good moments in a season and bad moments in a season. It’s about overcoming and embracing the adversity because really what we’ve talked about as a team is like adversity, we’ve all had to have adversity to be in this moment where we are right now, so adversity is what makes you who you are. It’s been the story of the 2023 to the 2024 Eagles. As bad of a feeling we had about how last year ended, I think it makes you who you are.
“These guys are hungry. And we’ve got one more to go.”
If the Eagles win, Geno’s and Pat’s should invite them for a cheesesteak party. Barkley and Hurts will be adored. Sirianni will be happy to watch. And don’t be shocked if Howie is sprayed with the most Cheez Whiz, the best way to enter Philadelphia’s heart.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.