Eagles' Nick Sirianni takes blame for putting Matt Patricia in 'tough spot'

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni wouldn't directly say whether or not he would go back in time and replace defensive coordinator Sean Desai with Matt Patricia again. 

However, reading between the lines made it seem as though he regretted that decision he made in Week 14 when he stripped Desai of his defensive playing-calling duties and handed them over to Patricia. 

"At the time I made that decision, like I’ve told you guys, I made that decision because I thought it was the best decision for the team," Sirianni said during his end-of-the-season press conference. "Obviously we all fell short at the end, at those last six weeks of the season. All of us did."

After starting the season 10-1, the Eagles lost six of their final seven contests, including an embarrassing 32-9 playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Their defense only worsened under Patricia as they allowed an average of 27.8 points per game down the stretch after surrendering just 24.7 points per game with Desai in charge.

"I’ll say obviously Matt was in a tough situation trying to — because you can’t completely change the defense, so he was trying to make some things happen with, quite frankly, things that weren’t his defense," Sirianni said. "I know I put Matt in a tough spot, and I know I put Sean in a tough spot. But at the time that I did that, I did it because I thought it was the best decision for the football team.

"There’s a lot of decisions I have to make like that, whether I go for it on fourth down in certain situations, what our philosophy is in a four-minute drive at the end of a game, and trust me, every time we do something like that and it doesn’t work, I think to myself, what was the best thing, and I can only come back to that answer to you right now, is that — and forevermore, that at the time when I did it, I did it because I thought it was the best thing for the defense."

And now he knows that it wasn't the best decision for the team. 

The Eagles parted ways with both Desai and Patricia a week ago and hired Vic Fangio as their new defensive coordinator. 

Fangio is an excellent hire and decision made by Sirianni since he comes with a long past of turning defensive units around.