Eagles' Nick Sirianni sends strong message after blowout losses

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni previously brushed aside opinions claiming he should take play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Brian Johnson following double-digit losses to the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys.

Sirianni seemed to send a direct message to his squad and to critics during his Thursday news conference. 

"We’re not hitting a panic button as far as, 'we’ve got to do everything different,'" Sirianni said, per Josh Alper of Pro Football Talk and Nick Shook of the NFL's website. "We didn’t play well and we didn’t coach good the last two weeks. It wasn’t up to our standard, so we’re p----- and we’re looking for ways to fix that." 

Specifically, Shook mentioned that the 10-3 Eagles are responsible for a point differential of +21. To compare, the first-place Cowboys (10-3) lead the league with a +188 point differential. 

Earlier in the week, Eagles defensive coordinator Sean Desai fielded questions regarding why opponents are converting 48.1% of third-down chances against his defense this season and why the San Francisco and Dallas offenses dominated Philadelphia's defense in the red zone. Sirianni declined to get into specifics about how he will look to remedy such issues beginning with the upcoming "Monday Night Football" game at the 6-7 Seattle Seahawks. 

"Like I said, we have our ideas of what we do, but then sometimes you look at different avenues of whether it's the criticism from the outside or it's an analytical thing," Sirianni continued during his comments. "There's an art to knowing what criticisms you listen to and what ones are jokes for that matter. But that's our jobs as coaches to go over everything we possibly can do."

As of early Thursday evening, oddschecker listed the Eagles as 3.5-point favorites against the Seahawks. One wonders if Sirianni will at least glance toward the so-called "panic button" if his side loses a third straight game ahead of Christmas.