'Sustained Success' Vs. 'Repeat:' Nick Sirianni Maps Out The Eagles' Path

Expectations can shift at a moment’s notice in a cyclical industry like professional sports.

For now, the Super Bowl LIX champion Philadelphia Eagles will try to navigate through the 2025 season from the NFL’s penthouse with a championship-or-bust mantra from most of the fanbase.

How the organization handles that bullishness might be the most important step to repeating.

The first order of business for head coach Nick Sirianni was a soft ban on that “R” word inside the NovaCare Complex.

Fresh off a contract extension that made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the league, Sirianni spent part of his offseason talking with other successful people in the world of sports, including Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson. 

For Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts, it was Jordan-brand centric with Michael Jordan himself and Derek Jeter. For the team’s 13-deep leadership committee, legendary quarterback Peyton Manning was there to be a sounding board. 

Through it all came a path forward.

“I think when you’re here working and you’re grinding through it, I don’t think you think of anything else but that,” Sirianni told a small group of reporters this spring, including Eagles On SI. “Going back to common mistakes of teams trying to sustain success.

“And notice I said ‘sustained success’ and not ‘repeat.’”

SUSTAINED SUCCESS

At the micro level, the idea of “luck” is not a word that resonates well around the NFL because you never want to minimize the effort to get better or the accomplishment that can ultimately be created, in the case of the Eagles, a Super Bowl LIX championship. 

However, from the macro perspective, it’s stipulated that the stars have to align to win the Lombardi Trophy.

That’s where “sustained success” enters the equation for the Eagles’ fifth-year head coach.

The idea is to always be in a position to strike when the worm turns your way. 

“We’ve had an element of sustained success throughout these four years,” Sirianni noted. “There’s no doubt. Some of our seasons have been higher than other seasons. But when you’re [focused on the moment], you’re solely focused on the task at hand.”

The thought process is a familiar one with successful people. 

PROCESS OVER RESULTS

About 3,500 miles away from Philadelphia, former top-10 women’s player Emma Raducanu was speaking at Wimbledon earlier this month. 

Her words felt familiar to anyone who’s been around Sirianni and the way the coach runs his program.

“It’s a mentally very challenging sport,” Raducanu said of her chosen profession. “I think for me, what I’ve found, is trying to surround yourself with good people. Trying to win the day. Trying to focus on the process as much as possible. 

“I think the results, it’s really difficult to kind of take your joy from the results. Because it’s so up and down. It’s a rollercoaster. So trying to enjoy and think ‘Did I get 1% better today? Or did I maintain today?’”

Expanding that from an individual sport to what Sirianni often describes as the “ultimate team sport” can be even more daunting.

IN THE MOMENT

In the world of problem solving, the idea of making a good decision and getting a poor result is baked in for those who’ve gotten over the hump from a logic standpoint. However, the battle-tested idea is that the more good decisions you make, the better the results will be.

For the Eagles organization, that has meant three Super Bowl appearances in eight years and the only two Lombardi Trophies in the franchise’s history, including the dominating Super Bowl win over Kansas City in February.

However, looking into that rearview mirror is just as dangerous as skipping steps when moving forward, according to Sirianni.

“You either can be right where you are, or you can look at it like, how are we going to get back to the Super Bowl? Error,” said Sirianni while answering his own rhetorical question. “Resting on your laurels and resting on your past accomplishments? Error.

“That builds your confidence and stuff like that, but I think it’s being right back into [what you’re doing now].”

As simple as staying present sounds, it’s human nature to do anything but. 

“That doesn’t mean that it’s easy,” Sirianni admitted. “You’re in the building, and everyone has the common goal of getting better, and this and that. But then you go outside and there are things pulling you in different directions because of the success. And that’s where it becomes tricky.

“It’s just making sure that you’re focused and locked in on where you are in each individual day."

PEYTON’S PLACE

The input of Manning, perhaps the most consistent week-to-week quarterback in NFL history, to the team’s leadership committee, something confirmed to Eagles On SI by tight end Dallas Goedert, resonated with Sirianni.

“He said something in there that I've thought about it, but it was cool to hear somebody else say it. He said something in there, like, 'After we won, the next thing I wanted to do was win for all the new coaches there and all the new players there. 

“That drove me, too.'” Sirianni explained. 

“Obviously, [Manning] wanted to win another one for himself and for his team and for the guys he's been around, but he wanted to be able to do that for [the new additions].”

Greatness is never satisfied. 

Some of the Eagles’ star players were left somewhat empty after a Super Bowl win. All-Pro receiver A.J. Brown even had a personal epiphany, realizing it’s the journey for him, not the destination, and noting his feelings of being a champion were “short-lived.”

“I wrote the [social media] post and it was just like, it wasn’t fulfilling,” Brown said. “It didn’t do anything for me. It didn’t do a lot for me that I thought. ... Even watching people win Super Bowls, I’m like, ‘Oh they’re happy, they’re celebrating in the locker room, drinking and stuff.’

“I’m just like okay, alright that’s how I supposed to feel. And I'm in the locker room after we win… I’m trying to feel how I pictured it, you know what I'm saying? My expectations of it. And I was totally wrong. I even sat down in the locker room for a second ‘cause I got tipsy ‘cause I don’t drink… I was just like, ‘Man, this is cool but I’m ready to go.’” 

For Sirianni, two people immediately popped into his mind after Manning’s words, new passing game coordinator Parks Frazier, a young ascending coach who was with the Eagles’ mentor in Indianapolis, and veteran cornerback Adoree’ Jackson, a good player who has been in bad situations while with the New York Giants.

“It was Parks Frazier. A guy that I have had a past relationship with in Indianapolis, and I'm like, 'Man, I want him to experience' … again, not talking about repeating. I want him to feel what we felt through that journey last year,” said Sirianni.. “And Adoree' [Jackson] popped in my mind.” 

The Eagles’ head coach has come a long way since his somewhat infamous introductory press conference during the death throes of the COVID era. A people person, Sirianni struggled to connect in a Zoom environment.

Now he wears the comfort of his own skin that only success can provide. 

“One of the reasons I love football so much is that it takes everybody to accomplish your goals,” he said.

And getting a new iteration of “everybody” to stay in a moment on a journey with grandiose expectations is Sirianni’s job description.

“I know that’s boring,” Sirianni said. “But success takes what it takes.”