The Philadelphia Eagles might not be playing their best football right now, and haven’t for a lot of the year, but Nick Sirianni seems to think there’s more to come.
I don’t agree with him, but the Eagles are still winning games, and there’s something to be said about that.
After the Eagles’ recent stretch of play, with some wins, Sirianni still understands that they haven’t shown a ton of improvement every game, but hinted at that being the case moving forward.
“You're constantly on this quest to get better. Even last game, there's things and there's lessons that came out of last game that -- obviously, we're all pissed that we didn't execute and coach as well as we needed to in the second half of that Buffalo game, but I really looked at it as like, 'Man, there's some opportunities here that we can really get better from,' as we went through it as coaches. That's got to be the constant mindset you have,” Sirianni said.
“The best teams are playing their best football by the end of the year and that's the teams that continue to excel through the playoffs and continue to go through the playoffs.”
On one hand, the Eagles are winning, stacking elite defensive performances, and might be fine. On the other hand, there’s a sense that they haven’t put together a good enough offensive performance against a true Super Bowl-caliber opponent and won’t when it matters in a few weeks.
The Eagles played well against the Buffalo Bills, but the second half had issues with offensive plays, and more. If that happens in the playoffs, the Eagles won’t have a chance.
The real question is whether this mindset will end up meaning anything. The Eagles have enough talent to beat any team on any given Sunday, but playoff football is playoff football.
If they don’t come out and do enough offensively, the season will be over much quicker than they’re hoping for.
Still, there’s no guarantee this version of the Eagles reaches a high level, as they haven’t for months now. They have to prove they can close games with game-winning drives, clean up second halves, and more.
They’re playing good football in a sense, but there are questions about whether Sirianni is right about the best football still needing to be played.