Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni pulled quite the head-scratching call on Monday night during a 10–7 victory over the Green Bay Packers.
Leading 10–7 with 33 seconds left in the game, Sirianni had the Eagles go for it on fourth down and six at the Green Bay 35-yard line. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts threw a deep ball to wide receiver A.J. Brown in the end zone that went incomplete. While it didn’t change the result of the game, Sirianni came under fire for the decision.
Green Bay received another chance to win or tie the game with 25 seconds left, and the Packers nearly did the latter. The Packers just didn’t get close enough as kicker Brandon McManus missed a 64-yard field goal attempt as time expired.
Sirianni wanted the hole to be too big for the Packers to rely on McManus’s leg. That said, the Eagles could have either kicked a long field goal, punted, or run for a first down on that previous drive.
“So, the end of the game, we are up three, and I would have liked to be in a little closer to kick a field goal,” Sirianni explained. “Again, you play every situation a little bit differently, but it was into the wind on that one. I knew the kick would have to be a little bit lower trajectory of a kick on that particular one.
“So we would have ended the game if we would have got that, and I’ve got a lot of faith in our guys to be able to do that,” Sirianni added. “But the reason I didn’t kick the field goal, again, being up three, it was just the trajectory into the wind there on that particular one.”
The trajectory of the game, meanwhile, had been a grueling defensive battle, with neither quarterback making many big plays. Philadelphia and Green Bay played to a 0–0 halftime deadlock, the first in the NFL since December 2023.
“That was a dog fight,” Sirianni said. “Hard place to come in to play. I’ve got a lot of respect for coach [Matt] LaFleur and that football team.”
Hurts went 15–26 for 183 yards and a touchdown, and he rushed for 27 yards on five carries. Packers quarterback Jordan Love went 20–36 for 176 yards, and he rushed for 28 yards on five carries.
Both teams traded punts throughout the first half, and the only long drive in the first quarter ended in a fumble by the Eagles. Hurts drove the Eagles to the Green Bay 24-yard line before he fumbled. Green Bay fumbled in the second quarter when Love took a sack and fumbled when Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean brought him down.
“I thought we did a really good job on third down, of getting off the field,” Sirianni said about his defense. “And a lot of that had to do with how we played up front on the defensive line.”
Philadelphia broke the tie in the third quarter at the end of a 10-play, 50-yard drive where kicker Jake Elliott hit a 39-yard field goal. The Eagles then made it 10–0 on Hurts’ 36-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver DeVonta Smith in the fourth quarter.
Green Bay answered with an 11-play, 75-yard drive, as running back Josh Jacobs put his team on the board with a 6-yard touchdown run. Jacobs had 21 carries for 74 yards in the game.
The Packers notably limited Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to 60 yards rushing and 41 yards receiving for the game.
Packers safeties Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams led the defense with seven tackles apiece. Eagles linebacker Zack Baun led his defense with eight tackles for the night.
Philadelphia’s defense stepped up late with a fumble recovery on Jacobs’ first-down attempt. On the Packers’ final possession, the Eagles defense applied enough pressure to Love, which kept him from moving his team into field goal range.
“That physicality, we put a lot into that. We talk about it an awful lot,” Sirianni said. “And we’ve got tough guys, so we know we’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”
