Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni defended his decision to kick a late field goal instead of going for it on fourth down in his team’s 22-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football.
“I’ve put myself in that situation prior to the call … my conviction in the moment was I knew exactly what I want,” Sirianni told reporters Wednesday.
“Is the outcome always what you want? No. But your conviction in the call, I was completely convicted that kicking the field goal there was the right decision, based off all my studies. Now, I come back and I re-evaluate it, right? And I’m even more convicted, to be quite honest with you.”
The field goal occurred the play after running back Saquon Barkley dropped a pass on third down that would have all but iced the game for the Eagles.
It took Atlanta only six plays and 65 seconds to drive down the field to score the game-winning touchdown on the next possession. The Eagles’ chances of winning dropped from 94% to 85% right after kicking the field goal, according to Next Gen Stats, per Jeff Kerr of CBS.
“Analytics is a piece. League study is a piece,” Sirianni said, via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “This game always comes down to players and plays, right? What plays do you have the most confidence in to your players in those particular cases, right? And so that’s where your confidence is coming from to go for things on that.”
He added: “No decision that a coach makes is made just on a piece of paper that says, ‘The chart says to go for it here.’ It’s not that easy, and it’s not that black and white. There’s so many things that factor into it.”
Philadelphia has now lost seven of its last nine games dating back to last season, including its wild-card round loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Eagles will face the 2-0 New Orleans Saints in Week 3.
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