If you watched the Eagles-Giants game Saturday night, you couldn’t help see Nick Sirianni mugging obnoxiously for a sideline TV camera while the Eagles were busy demolishing their division rival.
Made all the post-game highlights, too. And was all over social media.
If you’re an Eagles fan, you were probably thinking, ‘That’s my coach! I love that guy!’”
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If you’re not? You were probably thinking, ‘Oh man, I freaking HATE that guy.’”
This is the essence of Nick Sirianni.
He’s easy to like if he’s coaching your team, but you can imagine how Giants fans felt Sunday seeing him making faces into the camera while the game was going on.
“It was right in my face,” Sirianni said with a laugh Wednesday when asked about it. “I was juiced, we were up a couple scores and it was like right there. I don’t know. It’s the first thing that came to my mind. I guess that’s who I am.”
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Sirianni has never said anything more true.
That’s exactly who he is.
Sirianni is that guy you’ll go to the end of the Earth for if he’s on your side but you just want to stomp his face if he’s not.
Whether he’s screaming at opposing fans in the stands or yelling at a Giants fan on a South Jersey tennis court, he’s just not going to hide his emotions. That’s his personality, and he’s not going to change anytime soon.
Not surprisingly, he’s always been that way.
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to picture teenage Nick Sirianni infuriating kids on the opposing baseball or basketball team with his trash talking or enraging fans from the football teams Mt. Union was playing with taunts and insults.
“Yeah, you can ask some of the people from the neighboring high schools or the rival colleges,” he said. “You can ask some John Carroll guys or Baldwin Wallace guys.
“My brother married a girl from our rival high school and they have all sorts of family members there and my brother will go to an event at Randolph and he’ll be like, ‘You know, the people there still don’t like you from all the things that you did when you were playing against them?’”
Of course, part of the reason people don’t like Sirianni is because he’s good. That drives people crazy.
The Eagles reached the playoffs in his first year, they went 14-3 this year and beat the Giants 38-7 Saturday night and now they’re one home win against the 49ers away from the Super Bowl.
There are certain figures in sports that everybody hates. Unless they’re on your team. Then they’re beloved. Barry Bonds. T.O. Jon Runyan. Claude Lemieux. Dennis Rodman. Reggie Miller.
If Sirianni doesn’t fall into that category yet, he will soon.
You might have guessed by now that it doesn’t bother Sirianni if people outside Philly can’t stand him.
“I guess what I give to my team and all I care about is our team,” he said. “And I’m not really concerned with what anybody else thinks except for our team and helping make those guys the best football players they can possibly be.”