Nick Sirianni: Bad ending to 2023 season shaped who we are now

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said this week that the team's Super Bowl LVII loss to the Chiefs has been a "great driving force" for him and it's not the only part of their history that's playing a role in the team's run this year.

The Eagles looked like they might have had a shot at making the Super Bowl when they opened the 2023 season with a 10-1 record, but they lost five of their final six regular season games before being bounced from the playoffs by the Bucs in the Wild Card round. That led to speculation that they might fire head coach Nick Sirianni and make other major changes, but they wound up limiting the coaching changes to the coordinator level while regrouping over an offseason that saw them add running back Saquon Barkley, linebacker Zack Baun and others.

It's clear that approach had the desired result and Sirianni said at his Tuesday press conference that he's thankful for what happened last year because of the impact it had on this team.

"You’re going to have bad plays, you’re going to have good plays and it’s about being able to focus your mindset on the next one," Sirianni said. "This team’s embraced adversity. You never know, but even going back to the 2023 season, which we haven’t talked about a lot since the start of the year, we're grateful for that. We're thankful for that. As bad as it sucked at the time, I know I'm grateful for that — I’ll speak for myself — because it shaped us into who we are now and a big reason why we're back here."

It's hard to discount the contributions of players and coaches who weren't part of last year's team, but this year's squad heard grumbling after a 2-2 start and at other points when their offense wasn't clicking as hoped so everyone in New Orleans this week can say they've been able to turn bad turns into positive results.