The Philadelphia Eagles will be the “home” team this Friday night when they kick-off their 2024 regular season against the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. In reality, the neutral-site game will mark the fourth consecutive year that head coach Nick Sirianni has taken his team on the road in Week 1.
While players have voiced some displeasure about the trip to Sao Paulo, both from travel and safety perspectives, Sirianni has stayed positive at the podium, embracing the challenge and stressing the benefits of what a win, plus a mini bye week, would do for the team entering its Week 2 home opener against Atlanta on Sept. 16.
Sirianni also has a proven playbook for season openers away from Lincoln Financial Field. As head coach of the Eagles, he’s 3-0 in such games.
When asked about his approach, and how it might differ with this year’s altered schedule, Sirianni revealed that he’s constantly asking past and present coaches for advice. The Eagles welcomed Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy to practice last Thursday, and Sirianni said he asked Dungy about this very subject:
I’ve done so much studying as far as what’s the key to coming off of a bye week? What’s the key going into a Thursday night game? What’s the key to opening up the season? And every coach that I’ve been around that I love and respect, and look up to and use as a mentor, have been in a first game of a season. … Everybody’s been in an opener, and it’s the same stuff that always comes back to you in the openers.
You guys saw Tony Dungy at practice the other day. I asked him — what’s important, in your eyes, when you were a coach for the openers? So it’s the same things that come back to you. What you try to do is focus on those things that you know deep in your heart and through the research that you’ve done through different coaches, different players, stuff like that, of what has been important for success in Game 1 and for our success in Game 1, and try to repeat those things.
Sirianni served as offensive coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts from 2018 to 2020, so this isn’t the first time he’s picked Dungy’s brain on how to handle certain situations as an NFL head coach.
If recent history is any indication, Friday’s game with the Packers will be a fun one. Since their blowout win at Atlanta to open the 2021 season, the Eagles have played in some entertaining openers under Sirianni. In 2022, they edged the Detroit Lions at Ford Field, leaning on wide receiver A.J. Brown’s stellar Eagles debut in a 38-35 victory. Last year, the Eagles put up a stinker against a bad Patriots team, but did enough to leave Foxboro with a 25-20 triumph.
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