'This dude is a clown': Eagles coach Nick Sirianni yells at home fans after victory
You'd never see this in the NRL or the AFL - but the NFL is a different monster.
Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni took a different route when expressing his frustration, after a win at home, funnily enough.
The Eagles had scored their third win from five games this season, when Sirianni — already a habitual trash-talker — put a finger to his right ear and chirped at fans in the first rows at the Eagles home ground.
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Philadelphia fans had been yelling "Fire Nick!" all game and when the result was beyond doubt, Sirianni could not help himself.
The coach has copped a ribbing in the US sports media for taking the shine off his team and instead provided more social media and tabloid fodder for a coach whose job security is up for daily debate and who — even in victory — won’t win any popularity contests in Philadelphia.
Nick Sirianni chirps at home fans. FOX Sports
Retired NFL player and ESPN analyst Damien Woody called Sirianni's antics “clown behaviour. This dude is a clown.”
Talk show host Joe Giglio said on WIP radio that team owner Jeffrey Lurie needed to tell Sirianni “you apologise to the fan base or you pack your office up and leave.”
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mike Sielski wrote that Sirianni's problem was that “every outburst like Sunday’s damages the image he’s supposed to project and the respect he’s supposed to inspire.”
After the match, the coach's behaviour sparked more questions when his three young children tagged along with dad at the post-game news conference.
They squirmed and laughed when Sirianni dropped mild profanity and were mostly used as an excuse for the fourth-year coach to spend the bulk of his time talking about family rather than football.
The coach has been under pressure to keep his job. FOX Sports
The trash talk? The boos that tailed the Eagles into halftime? The “Fire Nick!” chants that permeated pockets at Lincoln Financial Field?
Sirianni made it clear: He can pop off when he’s unhappy, but Eagles fans need to pipe down when they're ticked off.
“We thrive off the crowd when they cheer for us. That’s all I’ll say,” Sirianni said. “When our crowd cheers for us, we thrive off of them.
"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 day after the unfortunate interaction with the fans, Sirianni's tone was a little more apologetic.
"I was trying to bring energy and enthusiasm yesterday, and I'm sorry and disappointed at how my energy was directed at the end of the game," he said.
"My energy should be all-in on coaching, motivating and celebrating with our guys. And I've got to have better wisdom and discernment of when to use that energy and that wasn't the time."
During the press conference on Tuesday (AEDT) Sirianni confirmed Australian star Jordan Mailata will be out for a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury.
Mailata was carted off the field in the the match and he did not return.
The Eagles' visit the Giants (2-4) on Monday AEDT.
