‘Brilliant Football IQ’

Jeffrey Lurie didn’t take questions last week when he introduced the Philadelphia Eagles’ new head coach, but the franchise’s chairman and chief executive officer was certainly gushing about one of Jamestown’s very own on Tuesday.

Speaking on the “Eagles Insider” podcast on the team’s website, Lurie repeatedly praised Nick Sirianni’s “football IQ,” telling host Dave Spadaro that the 39-year-old “checks all the boxes.”

“You sometimes have to rely on your gut,” Lurie said during the nearly 30-minute interview. ” … It became really obvious, both from the references and interviews we did … that he was a natural leader who connects, who is genuine. He comes from a very, very genuine spot and backs it up with a high football IQ. If you’re a player, you just want to be helped in your career as best as possible, and you want to be helped in your life as much as possible.”

Sirianni, Lurie maintained, fits both criteria.

“Nick comes across in a way that’s very caring, but also in a way that’s very strategic where you have confidence that, regardless of position — if it’s a wide receiver, a quarterback, a cornerback or a outside linebacker — it’s important to him to make sure that player is put into the best situation to succeed.”

Sirianni has made a habit of doing just that in his 12-year career.

In a journey that has taken him from the University of Mount Union to Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the college ranks to Kansas City, San Diego/Los Angeles, Indianapolis and now Philadelphia in the NFL, Sirianni has made positive impressions at every stop. That, Lurie said, was also the case during a two-day interview a couple weeks ago in Florida.

“We had a lot of good candidates,” Lurie told Spadaro. ” … There are a surplus of excellent candidates. With Nick, it was just a combination of many things. One, though, that I always look for right away is: is the candidate comfortable in their own skin?”

Lurie noted that if a candidate is, indeed, “comfortable in his own skin,” and “genuine,” that results in trust and, ultimately strong leadership.

“I think good leaders earn trust,” he said. “They don’t assume it by the position they’re in or the new position they’ve just accepted. It’s an ability to earn trust at every level of the organization. … To do that, you have to genuinely care about the lives of those who work with you. That is a very key element. It’s one of many, but Nick was absolutely terrific in terms of that comfort level and caring.”

The former offensive coordinator in Indianapolis will have his share of challenges.

The Eagles were 4-11-1 last season and Doug Pedersen was fired last month less than three years after he led the Eagles to their only Super Bowl in team history. But issues with franchise quarterback Carson Wentz — he had his worst season of his five-year career and was benched for rookie Jalen Hurts for the final four games in 2020 — meant Philadelphia needed a head coach who could bring out the best in the former MVP-caliber signal-caller.

However, Lurie said that Sirianni’s success working with quarterbacks in his previous stops was only a “small factor” in the interview process.

“We really did a search to try to find the best head coach,” Lurie said. “We were looking for the best head coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, the best leader and the best person to be able to communicate and uncover and maximize your roster now, your roster in a year, your roster in two and three years, and it will be very different in three years than it will be this year.

“We didn’t delve into the quarterbacks much because everyone has to watch film. … They can’t give us smart answers until they’ve really grinded it out, until they watch hours and hours and years and years of tape.”

“Grinder,” Lurie noted, is a trait, among others, that he likes about Sirianni.

“I would refer to him as someone who has a strong personality,” Lurie said. “He’s emotional, yet poised. Warm and open, but at the same time very, very intense. That’s a great combination. That’s a combination that can maximize your ability as a coach.”

Lurie told Spadaro that the fact that Sirianni has never been a head coach or called plays at any level was not an issue.

“I thought Andy Reid would be a terrific head coach, and he’d never been a coordinator and never called plays,” he said. “Chip (Kelly) had early success with us, Doug (Pederson) wins a Super Bowl in his second season.

“With Nick, you could see the wheels going. He’s an absorber that can add to his already high football IQ and figure out how best to maximize what he has. That’s a big part of it.”

When Spadaro asked what the talk was around the NFL about Sirianni, Lurie responded:

“I guess, ‘brilliant football IQ,’ is one that keeps coming up. Somebody who really puts the work in to become incredibly knowledgeable and yet what goes so well with that is the ability to teach and communicate. … You need dynamic football IQ, you need to have a presence, you need to have an edge — Nick has an edge, quite certainly — but you also got to earn the trust, and that’s hard to find. He checked all the boxes. … Every reference we had, every interview we did it was how he connects to players, coaches, everybody.

“It’s part of the whole picture, but it’s an important part.”