Cameras caught Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni yelling and gesturing at the home crowd near the end of Sunday’s 20-16 win over the Cleveland Browns at Lincoln Financial Field.
“Just excited to get the win, yeah,” Sirianni said with a smirk afterward, via the team’s official transcript. “It’s hard to win in this league, so we’re excited to get the win. Our fans created a couple of false starts that really helped us win this football game. But I’m just excited to get the win and I appreciate the Linc’s support.”
Philly fans let their frustrations be known during the contest, raining down boos as the offense once again struggled to get going. At certain points, portions of the home crowd chanted, “Fire Nick.”
The Eagles haven’t scored a single first-quarter point this season. It’s the first time the Eagles have scored zero first-quarter points through their first five games of a season since the franchise’s first two years of existence in 1933 and 1934.
“We thrive off the crowd when they cheer for us,” Sirianni said. “That’s all I’ll say. When our crowd cheers for us, we thrive off of them. You know, we hear them when they boo. We don’t necessarily like it. I don’t think that’s productive for anybody. When they cheer for us, and we’ve got them rolling, we love it.”
A feisty Sirianni has taken heat for the Eagles’ early-season struggles coming off last year’s collapse. However, getting back A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson helped open things up late against Cleveland. Brown generated 116 yards and a touchdown on six grabs. Smith earned three catches for 64 yards and the game-winning TD, and Johnson allowed zero QB pressures on 28 pass-blocking snaps, per Next Gen Stats.
Even with the big names back, the offense still looked stuck in the mud for too long.
“We’re a constipated offense is what it bleeping comes down to,” Johnson said, via NJ.com. “It seems like that a lot. We’re definitely frustrated. We have a lot of ability, a lot of talent and we are making games a lot more competitive than they need to be. We’ve got to fix it. As far as talent-wise, this is one of the more loaded offenses I’ve been a part of.”
The star right tackle said he understands the boos from fans.
“I’d be doing the same thing,” Johnson said. “They’re tired of seeing offenses that aren’t efficient, especially in the first half. We’re really putting ourselves in bad positions. Our first quarter hasn’t been our strong point. We’ve talked about it, but moving forward, we’ve got to go prove it.”
The Eagles have flip-flopped wins and losses each week this season. Coming off a close home win, Philly now heads to New York to face the rival Giants in Week 7.
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