The Philadelphia Eagles dropped to 2-6 on the season with Sunday’s loss to the Washington Commanders. The game marked Philadelphia’s sixth consecutive loss and its third since the franchise announced that star quarterback Jalen Hurts would miss the remainder of the season after testing revealed the former Super Bowl MVP had several blood clots in his lungs.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni handed the offense to Tanner McKee in Hurts’ absence, and while McKee has shown flashes, the offense has struggled to find consistency. Despite this, Sirianni stood by the 2023 sixth-rounder during his media availability on Monday, asserting that “Tanner is our guy.”
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However, just two days later, the Eagles announced that they were making a change at the position and starting Joe Milton for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants.
While speaking with the media on Thursday, Sirianni was confronted about the timeline behind the QB change.
“I’m trying to understand kind of the decision-making process on this,” a reporter told the coach. “Tanner tells us that he was informed he was being benched on Tuesday. You had media availability on Wednesday, but the first people we hear about this potential quarterback shift [from] is unfortunately your players who are like, ‘we don’t know what to say.'”
Siranni then owned up to keeping things close to the vest and that it was only because an outside source got ahold of the information that it was leaked at all.
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“I was gonna hold on to that as long as I possibly could, every second, every minute,” he admitted. “That, you know, again, I’m not real shy with you guys. I’m going to tell you what I want to tell you guys. I respect the job that y’all have to do, but I’m going to tell you what I want to tell you guys because I’m always going to protect the team first and foremost.
“And, you know, every second that goes by in a situation like that, you can hold on to information as long as you possibly can, is a little less time for the opponent to get ready for the game. And so I know there’s a lot of interest in everything that you all want to hear, the fans want to hear. My job is to win football games and do everything we can do to help win football games, protect the guys here on this football team, and handle it, you know, everything that I can, inside.”
While Sirianni may say he’s “not real shy” with the media, this isn’t the first time he’s been noticeably coy during a presser. He was similarly unforthcoming about the protocol the franchise followed with Hurts’ diagnosis. Philadelphia’s media is learning the hard way that if it wants answers on how the Eagles operate, they’re better off looking somewhere other than the team’s head coach.
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