Eagles Nick Sirianni Reveals Thoughts During Super Bowl Parade

It was a sweetheart moment for Eagles fans watching their heroes cruise up Broad Street on the way to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Valentine’s Day as they celebrated their team’s 40-22 Super Bowl LIX win over the Kansas City Chiefs days earlier in New Orleans.

For Nick Sirianni, it was a mix of many emotions. Certainly, the celebration of the organization’s second Super Bowl triumph in seven years was at the forefront of his thoughts as the parade marched on. But another emotion was the Super Bowl loss the Eagles endured two years earlier, 38-35, to the Kansas City Chiefs, in Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Ariz.

“I did have a moment in the parade where I was like, ‘Man, I wish we would’ve been able to do this two years ago,’” he said during a sit-down interview during mandatory minicamp with about 15 beat reporters that cover the team daily. The interview was embargoed until July 14, about a week before the Eagles will begin defending their Super Bowl title when they open their fifth training camp with Sirianni in charge.

Like anything else, though, Sirianni took that loss two years ago as a learning lesson.

“I think adversity is really, really good for people,” said the coach. “If people ask me, what’s the best advice you can give a young person? Well, one, you gotta work your butt off. And two, this is the best two things I have … there is no substitute for work.

“And two, you gotta be able to handle adversity because adversity is happening whether you like it or whether you don’t. It’s happening. And adversity, if you allow it, will make you into the person you are today.”

The person Sirianni has become, he said, probably wouldn’t have been possible without a life-changing experience he went through 24 years ago, when he nearly lost a leg when a staph infection invaded his body after surgery to repair a muscle that had torn in half during a playoff game when he was a receiver at Mount Union. He spent a long time in the hospital.

“I’m not sitting in this chair if I didn’t go through that leg injury in 2001,” he said. “The things that we had to go through in 2023 paved the way to help us win a world championship in 2024. The things we learned. The way we grew from it. But you have to have this growth mindset to be able to do that. You’re going to have to find ways to grow from your adversity.”

Sirianni did that then and again after a difficult loss in the Super Bowl in early 2024.

“Hard things are good to go through,” he said. “And when we go through hard times, we remember stories like this. We will be better because of hard times. That’s a winner’s mindset.”