What the Eagles learned from catastrophic end to 2023 season

Nick Sirianni always says he looks at mistakes as opportunities to grow and improve. If that’s really true, then the last seven weeks of the 2023 season were jam packed with lessons.

Every squandered lead. Every blowout loss. Every ill-fated decision. Every embarrassing moment.

Lessons everywhere.

Whether Sirianni and the Eagles really did figure out what went wrong last year and grow from the disastrous seven-game collapse will shape the course of the franchise over the coming years.

The Eagles team that opens training camp in nine days will look dramatically different than the version that stumbled to the finish line six months ago.

All the changes – to the roster, the coaching staff, the offensive structure – were the product of learning as much as possible from the 43 days where the Eagles went from an almost unstoppable 10-1 powerhouse seemingly on the way to a No. 1 seed to an 11-6 disaster that got blown out as a road favorite by a nine-win team in a wild-card game.

Will the Eagles bounce back to Super Bowl form of 2022? Or was the 1-6 finish a sign of things to come?

It all depends how much they really learned.

“It’s really an awesome opportunity,” Sirianni said in a recent interview. “I look at mistakes at practice like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got an unbelievable opportunity to get better from this.’ And it’s the same thing here. We have this unbelievable opportunity to get better at that. It’s not an easy mindset to kind of establish. It's a hard mindset, especially when you’re going through it. But I think it’s very valuable. 

“After every season, you ask every player, ‘What did you think went wrong? What did you think went right? What did you like (that) we did, what did you (not) like (that) we did?’ And you take all that information and you look for common themes and then you try to be honest with yourself and say, ‘OK, we’ve got to do a better job with this.

“I think we did a good job of really evaluating that, and hopefully that shows up next year.”

If Howie Roseman and Sirianni haven’t figured out exactly why the worst collapse in 37 years by a playoff-bound team happened, how can they make sure it won’t happen again?

Sirianni wouldn't share his feelings on why the Eagles fell apart late last year, but the moves the team made since January tell you exactly why.

Just connect the dots.

The Eagles were too old and slow on defense and too reliant on disinterested one-year veterans, Brian Johnson’s offense grew stale and predictable and didn’t give Jalen Hurts the opportunity to excel, the change from Sean Desai to Matt Patricia was disastrous, more experienced coordinators from the outside were mandatory and the offense needed another big-time weapon.

They won’t tell us what they were thinking, but they sure showed us.

Sirianni took the blame for everything that happened in December and January, first joking that he was 97 percent responsible, then acknowledging that in reality the collapse was 100 percent on him.

“If I want these guys to have accountability, I have to take accountability,” he said. “And as the head football coach, you are responsible for every product that is on that field. Everything. 

‘Well, I don't have my hand in the defense,’ but you hired the defensive coordinator. ‘Well, I don't have my hand in the special teams,’ but you hired the special teams coordinator. ‘Well, I don't have my hand in the offense,’ but you teach the detail and the fundamentals that go through that and not only do you teach that, you tell the assistant coaches what you expect, you tell the players what you expect, you lead the expectations based off what you said. 

“So 100 percent.”

How can the Eagles make sure it doesn’t happen again?

There are 43 new players on the 90-man roster and eight new assistant coaches, including new coordinators Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore. The defense could have as many as seven new starters, and there will be new schemes and approaches on both sides of the ball. Sirianni’s own role has changed dramatically, and he’ll serve as a CEO head coach as opposed to an offensive head coach.

Sirianni is confident that whatever afflicted the Eagles down the stretch last year is long gone.

 “This is a new team, and all we're concerned about is the 2024 Eagles,” he said. “We learned from last year. We went through our stuff and we learned from the things that we learned from. And then you implement those here and we're gonna continue to implement them. 

“Saquon Barclay doesn't care (about the 2023 collapse). In fact, he was really happy we lost the last game of last year against the Giants. Same thing with Oren Burks, same thing with Zack Baun, same thing with Devin White. 

“This is the 2024 Eagles and our expectations are to enjoy the journey and get better daily, and there's nothing we can do about the past except to learn from it. 

“You know, dog mentality is not just learning or moving on to the next play, it's learning from what you screwed up and getting better from that. And so, yeah, that shouldn't be on our mind. We'll learn from what we did last year and we'll get better from it.”