Consider the Falcons–Eagles game through the prism of Bill Belichick for a moment, and yes, we know the mental toll that would inflict upon you. But suck it up and do it anyway. You're an adult.
Here he is, Everyone's Next Head Coach, wanting desperately to hide the fact (despite his subtle tone-of-voice hints on Monday's Manningcast) that he wants the Atlanta Falcons to physically decompose out where we can all watch it, only to find out that not only are they gifted a win they did not fully merit, but that the coaching vacancy that may result from this game is Philadelphia's.
Yes, Nick Sirianni outthought himself yet again, throwing a pass on third down from the Atlanta 10-yard line with a three-point lead and 1:46 left to play, a play that screamed for a clock-eating Tush Push (or maybe even two) to set up a chip-shot field goal by Jake Elliott to ice the win. Instead, Saquon Barkley dropped said pass and Elliott kicked the field goal but left the Falcons 109 seconds to do the thing you never thought Kirk Cousins could do, rather than the nine seconds or so it should have been.
Anyway, Cousins does the thing, the thing being a 70-yard drive in 35 seconds that ends with a touchdown pass to Drake London. The Falcons take their 21-15 loss and turn it into a 22-21 win, and Belichick, who was sure he was going to get the Falcons job in January until the moment he didn't get it, ends up eating roofing nails for the rest of the evening.
Ahh, but while HR normally taketh away, sometimes it giveth as well, and now the guy on the hot seat that Belichick is everyone's first thought to fill is not Raheem Morris, the actual Falcons coach, but Sirianni, who has been the object of Philadelphia's discontent despite having helped the Eagles get to the Super Bowl two seasons ago.
Patience in the NFL is always defined in weeks rather than years; just yesterday, the Carolina Panthers took their top draft choice of a year ago, quarterback Bryce Young, and have benched him after two games for retread di tutti retreads Andy Dalton. Sirianni almost certainly won't be fired this week, but this is a hard one for him to explain away, and when the time comes for Eagles owner Jeff Lurie to drop the hammer, game management will be a topic. The only question will be when Lurie feels the need to scratch the itch, and whether he calls Belichick first or Belichick calls him. It's a world of chasing the reaper, and the lesson here is that the reaper does not take suggestions. It swings indiscriminately and lets everyone else handle the cleanup.
In the meantime, there will be other coaches on this list. Mike McCarthy and Dallas just got blown out by New Orleans, Brian Daboll is dying audibly in New York, and Dave Canales works for David Tepper in Carolina, just to name three potential vacancies. Belichick will be equally interested in all of them. He'll always have a special place in that coal mine he calls a chest cavity for Atlanta's longterm demise, but he is surprisingly flexible when it comes to jobs. He worked in Cleveland for Art Modell, and he coached the Jets for nearly a day.
The message? Well, as the old philosopher once said, you can't always get what you want, but blah-blah-blah-de-blah-blah.
