The Philadelphia Eagles won a close one against the Green Bay Packers on Monday night at Lambeau Field. But the 10-7 victory didn’t come without a controversial decision by Nick Sirianni that left plenty of fans scratching their heads — or yelling at their TVs.
The Eagles, thanks to a fourth-down stop by trade acquisition Jaelan Phillips, had a chance to put the game on ice. Up three, all they needed was a first down with 1:22 to go.
Two runs for three yards burned Green Bay’s final two timeouts. A third-down run bled the clock down to 33 seconds. But the Eagles still faced a fourth-and-6 at the Packers’ 35-yard line.
Sirianni had three options: punt it, go for it or try a 52-yard field goal. The Eagles went for it. Jalen Hurts took a deep shot in A.J. Brown’s direction, and the pass fell incomplete.
That gave Green Bay a chance to get in field-goal range. Ultimately, Green Bay couldn’t make Philadelphia pay for its aggressiveness. Brandon McManus’ 64-yard was way off the mark. But the fact that the Packers had a chance to tie the game at all was surprising to say the least.
Sirianni was asked about his decision to go for it in that scenario.
“We’re up three, and I would’ve liked to be a little closer to kick a field goal,” Sirianni told reporters in his postgame press conference. “But the closer we would’ve gotten, you know, you play every situation a little bit differentlyIt was into the wind on that one. I knew the kick would have had to be a little lower of a trajectory on that one. I’ve got a lot of faith in our offense. And it didn’t work out on this one. We just didn’t get it. But I stand put on that decision.”
Not trotting Jake Elliott out there for a field goal made sense. It was frigid at Lambeau, and the wind was swirling. But Sirianni did not address the possibility of punting it away.
Punting was the recommended decision, according to ESPN Analytics. The Eagles would have had a 98.6% chance to win by punting and a 93.7% chance to win by going for it.
Then, there was the actual play-call. Instead of trying to just get the six yards to move the chains and end the game, Hurts’ deep ball to Brown was puzzling.
“In that moment, we made that decision to go for it. Don’t regret that at all. Wanted to be able to end the game,” Sirianni said. “It didn’t work this time. Sometimes that happens. But I’ve got a lot of faith in sending those guys back out there in those scenarios.
“... When they work, we’re high-fiving. When they don’t, we’re going to go back and say, ‘Hey, was this the best thing that we should’ve done in this particular case?’ And we’ll be hyper-critical of ourselves there. But I know how much trust I have in Jalen. And I know how much trust I have in those guys out there. He threw it to A.J. in that particular case. (I have trust in) A.J., in the offensive linemen, everybody that goes into that. We’ll look at it. But we’ve hit it before.”
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