NFL winners and losers: Nick Sirianni sucks

| Getty Images The Philadelphia Eagles’ loss to the Rams in Week 4 doesn’t appear to be that bad in isolation. It was a narrow loss to a good team, the defense performed, and at first glance you might mistake the game for simply being a bad break. Dig a little deeper, and you see that Philadelphia simply isn’t performing up to the ability of its roster. You follow the flowchart up to the top when that happens, and the buck stops with Nick Sirianni. Sirianni has remained Teflon for several years now, because that’s what happens when you win a Super Bowl. I’ve caught plenty of flak from Eagles fans for criticizing Sirianni since then, suggesting that perhaps the win was a bigger byproduct of coordinators than it was Sirianni’s brilliance, and suggesting that the man at the top might not be the football genius he’s presented as being. The offense is a major problem for the Eagles. It’s been an issue not just this season, but for the last 21 games. It was atrocious throughout the 2025 season, and it’s been equally terrible so far this year. When Steichen left the Eagles after the 2022 season the team ranked 3rd in yards and points scored, the following year they fell to 7th and 8th, respectively — which they did for two years. Then came the cliff, with Philadelphia falling to 19th and 24th last season and now they’re 25th in yards and 24th in scoring. Sirianni keeps rearranging the deckchairs on his offensive Titanic, but the result is the same. On Sunday they were 0-for-12 on third down, 1-for-4 on fourth down. That is a systemic failure in coaching, and when your starting quarterback is only able to complete 12 passes for 93 yards against a defense that doesn’t have Myles Garrett OR Aaron Donald, it’s a major problem. There are myriad issues with the Eagles offense right now. Jalen Hurts appears afraid to use his legs to gain yards, which is either an internal issue with the QB — or something the team has coached him away from. As a result you have a quarterback whose career has been defined through combining the threat of his arm and legs to justify his ability, but taking half of that threat away leaves his an as demonstrably mediocre player. This is made worse by the fact that Saquon Barkley is hurt. We don’t know the severity of the injury at this time, but even a few missed games will be a colossal problem with the Jaguars, Panthers, and Cowboys on the slate — three teams who have offenses that could pressure Philadelphia to match them. These are also three teams the team should be able to beat easily, but so were the Titans and Commanders — with the Eagles struggling to one-possession victories over both. The Sirianni hot seat is real, or at least it should be. This team has churned through offensive coordinators since its Super Bowl win, routinely causing them to get blamed when things go wrong and the offense doesn’t reach its potential. This has to come back to Sirianni at some point, and it’s fair to question whether or not he’s lost control of the offensive side of the ball. One of the best traits the Eagles had at their zenith was a perfect understanding of who they are, their strengths, and not getting outside of that rubric. Lately it’s felt as if Philadelphia is playing aspirational football, forcing what they want to be, rather than accepting who they are right now — and playing to those strengths. It’s a weird situation, because Sirianni actually does have a lot of fantastic traits. He’s an excellent motivator, he developed a locker room culture that had more of a swagger an edge, but he’s sorely needing someone to assist with the strategic elements of the game. It’s not that Sirianni is incapable, but more that he looks like a coach who is underwater right now, trying to do too much at once. If he doesnt find a way of swimming soon, it’ll sink this entire season. Winner: Bryce Young Before Sunday Night Football Bryce Young was the statistical top passer in the NFL, but it felt a little like fool’s gold. With a nation’s eyes on the Panthers’ diminutive QB he arguably had the best game of his career, with an unflappable performance in the pocket that saw him dismantle a hapless Lions’ defense. This was the culmination of everything that led up to this point. Young fought through early adversity with terrible coaching and no quality receivers in his rookie season. He was benched to try and rebuild the Qb at the beginning of year two. Now the resurgence has become, and Young has become incredible. Not only is he the league’s best deep passer, but his ability as a distributor is second-to-none in the league right now. This is a Panthers team with deep problems on its offensive line, they were without their No. 2 and No. 3 receivers on Sunday night, yet Young still managed to finish with 329 yards and 2 TDs. It’s Bryce’s world, and we’re just living in it. Loser: The Houston Texans The NFL’s equivalent of Sunday dinner, because each week they’re getting cooked. Sitting at 0-4, the playoff window is quickly closing, and the team has morphed into a grotesque caricature of themselves from a year ago. In 2025 this was an organization that had a brilliant defense and an offense that just couldn’t help enough. Now the offense is no longer the concern, because the defense has become a complete liability. Against the Cowboys the Texans gave up 399 yards of total offense, and had absolutely no answers for CeeDee Lamb, who finished with 17 receptions for 189 yards and a TD. Giving up an astonishing 28 first downs, the Texans allowed Dallas to dominate the time of possession and ensure the Texans just didn’t have enough chances. Things are deeply, deeply wrong with this Texans team. They have squandered some games they should have won easily on the first part of their schedule, and now they’re hitting a really shaky stretch before their bye. They should bean the Titans without too much issue, but the Jaguars and even the Giants are another story now. This team could very well be 1-6 entering their bye week, which would sink their playoff hopes entirely. DeMeco Ryans doesn’t seem to have an answer to stop the bleeding. The vibes feel all off with Houston, and they looks miles apart from the Jaguars and Colts atop the AFC South. Winner: Kyle Shanahan Another week, another 49ers win despite their ludicrous number of injuries. It would be easy to discredit beating the Broncos without Patrick Surtain Jr, but ultimately San Francisco was without numerous players who could have influenced the game. I was fervent in my support of Shanny getting Coach of the Year in 2025 for how he managed his team through injuries, and that same thing is happening once more. The 49ers just have no quit, and are putting together something special once more. This team is almost too good that a substation can’t stop them … almost. We’ll need to see what happens in the next few weeks. Who are your nominees for the biggest winners and losers of Week 4?

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