Philadelphia Eagles: Emmanuel Acho REALLY doesn’t like Nick Sirianni
Emmanuel Acho just might be the most successful former Philadelphia Eagles player outside of the NFL right now.
A sixth-round pick out of Texas by the Cleveland Browns in 2012, Acho was acquired by the Eagles in a player-for-player trade in exchange for Dion Lewis in 2013 – a move Acho later admitted probably wasn’t a fair trade – and went on to play 20 games in midnight green before transitioned into media as an analyst for the Longhorn Network.
While it would be understandable for Acho to feel a certain kind of way about the Eagles, as the team waived him five times in a little over two seasons, that wouldn’t appear to be the case. No, through his time at the Longhorn Network, ESPN, and eventually headlining his own show, Speak For Yourself, at FS1, Acho has kept a soft spot in his heart for his former team – as he could be seen celebrating with Bryan Brahman when the Eagles won the Super Bowl back in 2018 and was noticeably upset when the team opted to part ways with Doug Pederson after five (mostly) successful seasons.
But let’s just say Acho isn’t a huge fan of Nick Sirianni, the coach the Eagles opted to hire after an expansive search (more on him here).
Did the Philadelphia Eagles really just hire a “puppet” for management?
More from Section 215
- 4 Eagles on the Bubble Who Have Clinched Their 53-Man Roster Spots
- Best Pennsylvania Sportsbook Promos: Win $650 GUARANTEED Bonus PLUS $100 off NFL Sunday Ticket
- 3 Punters the Eagles Must Target to Replace Arryn Siposs
- Cowboys Trey Lance Trade Proves How Screwed They Are With Dak Prescott
- Devon Allen Took Britain Covey’s Job on Eagles
Speaking with his co-host, Marcellus Wiley, on the very day the momentous signing went down, Acho let his true feelings fly on a 20-minute segment you can check out here, calling Sirianni unqualified, overvalued, and, most brutally of all, a puppet for the Eagles management.
DAAAArn, that’s brutal.
Now to be fair, Wiley – and to a lesser extend Acho- did give some semblance of praise to Sirianni, highlighting how well the Colts’ offense improved over the past few seasons, but it was few and far between. They, instead, added fuel to the fire that Sirianni was explicitly hired to try to ‘fix’ Carson Wentz and give him the tools needed to get back to his former glory in a more offensively advantageous scheme – which, in a way, plays into that puppet narrative even more.
As Acho pointed out via some insider information, Frank Reich never actually called plays for the Eagles, and a bigger reason why the team had success during their Super Bowl run was due to having a fantastic supporting class that became increasingly less effective with each passing season. Thus, by the 30-year-old’s estimations, hiring Sirianni isn’t some magic pill that fixes everything because Reich calls plays for the Colts and thus can’t be realistically counted on to equivalently fix the Eagles without seeing the product on the field.
And, to be fair, this narrative isn’t unique to Acho.
According to a course relayed to the world by Jeff McLane, Sirianni is a good guy, a solid candidate, who is fairly smart but not super smart. While said course does believe Sirianni could push the Birds to the playoffs if everything falls perfectly, it seems very unlikely that he’ll become a Super Bowl champion anytime soon.
While some, like Reich in an older clip, contradicted this assertion, there is a small but vocal segment of the Eagles Universe that is rapidly turning against the 39-year-old head coach without so much as seeing his coaching staff or seeing what kind of scheme he opts to deploy when his team eventually takes the field.
Regardless of how you slice it, that’s not a situation any team wants to be in.
dark. Next. New HC Nick Sirianni could usher in a quick “re-tool”
Whether you wanted to see the team hire Eric Bieniemy, liked Josh McDaniels for… some reason, or threw your phone in disgust when news broke that Los Angeles Chargers were hiring Brandon Staley before he could even fly out to South Philly Florida for an interview, it’s clear the Philadelphia Eagles didn’t get the feel-good pop many were hoping for when they finally announced their replacement for Doug Pederson. If they wanted that, they had a perfectly fine Duce Staley sitting in-house who would have generated a massive pop from fans the world over. But that isn’t the route Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie opted to take. No, they scoured the football world and identified Nick Sirianni as the man for the job and locked him up. Is it the right call? Only time will tell, but clearly some, like Emmanuel Acho, will take some convincing.