Julian Love Seems Pretty Salty That the Eagles Owned the Giants This Year
The Philadelphia Eagles are in Super Bowl LVII after making it through the NFC playoffs pretty painlessly. Their first playoff matchup came against the Giants two weeks ago, which the Eagles of course won 38-7 in a game that was frankly non-competitive from the opening snap. Despite being sent home in embarrassing fashion, Giants safety Julian Love went on Good Morning Football on Thursday and decided to throw shade at Nick Sirianni, suggesting that the Eagles head coach is getting a “free ride” to the Super Bowl:
Some interesting Nick Sirianni comments from Giants safety Julian Love on GMFB this morning. pic.twitter.com/xdxeKGjuhD
— Bob Wankel (@BobWankelCB) February 2, 2023
Let’s break this down piece by piece:
“He’s a guy who really is doing a great job cause he’s not getting in the way of his team.”
It is indisputable that Sirianni has not only been heavily involved in the gameplanning of the team, but that his involvement has had a major positive impact on the Eagles season. His most impactful trait in my opinion is the fourth down aggressiveness. Despite being way ahead on the scoreboard over the course of many of their games this season, the Eagles attempted the fourth-most fourth-downs in the NFL, and were also top 5 in both number of conversions and conversion percentage. Of course, many of these were QB sneaks in short-yardage situations that the team had a huge advantage on due to their mauling offensive line and quarterback who can squat 600 pounds. Even with that in consideration, though, Sirianni is more aggressive than most head coaches, and fourth down aggressiveness is more likely to lead to wins than conservativeness, as we have already seen with another Eagles team that made the Super Bowl. Kyle Shanahan, the coach the Eagles faced last week, lost last year’s NFC Championship Game against the Rams largely due to a series of ridiculously cowardly punts on fourth downs. It makes a difference, and Sirianni has that trait in him. Additionally, the Eagles have constructed some brilliant offensive gameplans this season, including Week 6 against the Cowboys, where they used Micah Parsons against himself by leaving him unblocked on option plays and forcing him to make decisions in open space. To suggest that Sirianni is somehow not involved and would be “getting in the way” of the team if he were to be involved is laughable nonsense.
“He has an experienced roster top to bottom, offense [and] defense”.
He most certainly does, and an extremely talented one at that. That is fine! Most Super Bowl winners have very deep and talented rosters. It does not discredit the job Sirianni has done this year.
Love then essentially gets asked about his thoughts on the showmanship of Sirianni on the sideline during games, to which Love continued:
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I mean, he’s in for a free ride right now. I mean you guys could coach this team.”
Give me a break. First of all, of course Love does not like the fact that Sirianni is showing his team up as he runs them out of the city on national television. Certainly, his thoughts would be the same if the script was flipped and the Giants were the ones acting cocky.
“He’s in for a free ride right now. You guys could coach this team.” Love more than anyone should understand the impact that a good coach can have on a football team. This year’s Giants roster was trash, if we’re just being honest, and yet they still made the playoffs, and even won a playoff game on the road. What was the difference between the past five Giants teams who combined to tie for the worst record in the NFL during that span and this year’s team? There is only one major one – the head coach. Brian Daboll turned the disaster that once was Daniel Jones into an efficient game manager who consistently made plays with his legs in just one year, and the team played extremely hard for him. He is the reason the Giants were at least a little respectable this year, and yet we are supposed to dismiss Sirianni’s even greater level of success in turning Jalen Hurts and the Eagles around just because the team did a better job of building a good roster? It is complete sour grapes, and maybe one day I can start taking baseless comments like this seriously if the Giants decide to be competitive in Philadelphia for once.
Photo: Gary McCullough/AP
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Categorized:Eagles