August 26, 2026

Nick Sirianni has a 'process' to Eagles preseason, and the Week 1 results make it hard to argue with

The Eagles are undefeated in season openers in the Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts era, and Sirianni has an evolving plan to keep that streak going.

By Nick Tricome
PhillyVoice Staff

Colleen Claggett/For PhillyVoice

Nick Sirianni's results in Week 1 make his preseason approach hard to argue with.

Nick Sirianni has a bit of a unique reputation to uphold as the Eagles' season opener approaches.

Since getting hired as head coach ahead of the 2021 season, his Eagles teams have never lost in Week 1. They're a perfect 5-0, and looking to make it six when they open up 2026 against Washington in a few weeks.

Since getting hired, too, the Eagles have stopped prioritizing preseason games as a meaningful ramp-up for their projected starters. Maybe one or two will play a series or two if they truly need it, but ever since Jalen Hurts got hit out of bounds against the Jets during the 2022 preseason, that's been the hard upper limit.

But it's also worked.

Across the past five seasons, the Eagles have always started (mostly) on the right foot, have progressed through the schedule relatively healthy compared to most other teams, and have either been a Wild Card loser at their worst or an outright Super Bowl team at their best.

So this training camp and preseason, the Eagles haven't been out to fix what isn't broken. Most starters have stayed sidelined during the preseason games. Linebacker Jihaad Campbell did play in the first against Baltimore, and maybe rookie receiver Makai Lemon will play a bit in the last against Cincinnati on Friday to make up for lost time due to injury. But other than that, the team, has stayed on its usual summer course.

So ahead of the Eagles' open practice at Lincoln Financial Field on Tuesday night, Sirianni was asked whether he believes his approach to camp and the preseason has a direct tie to the Eagles' spotless record with him as coach in season openers.

It's an ever-evolving process, he said, but at the core of it, he mentioned that great conditioning from the players far before any practice rep gets taken and extensive planning count for a lot when getting out of the gate.

"First game of the season, you have to have a plan for," Sirianni said. "A September game at 1 o'clock in Tampa, you have to have a plan for. A Thursday night game, you have to have a plan for; a Monday night game, a game coming off of a Monday night game...All these things you have to have a plan for.

"So you just try to continually perfect that process. You have to know exactly what you did each time, have everything written down: what worked? What didn't work? And be willing – like, one of the worst things I think people can say in this business is like, 'Well, we've always done it that way.' That's not a growth mindset. It's figuring out what works best with each and every schedule."

Then branching off from there.

While the Eagles are undefeated in Week 1 opener with Sirianni as coach, and Jalen Hurts as the starting quarterback, those games have never been a cakewalk outside of a 2021 thrashing of the Atlanta Falcons.

The 2022 opener was a shootout to outlast a pesky Lions team in Detroit; 2023 was getting around a bad New England team, and frankly, about the Eagles getting out of their own way; 2024 was finding the footing for the Saquon Barkley-led running game against the Packers, while in Brazil; and 2025 was about outlasting the division rival Cowboys right from the jump.

Those opening games have often been bumpy to put it lightly, or ugly to put it bluntly, which has brought on an annual discussion every September that maybe the Eagles should've played the starters just a bit during the preseason.

"Obviously, we always think about that," Sirianni said. "I think early parts of training camp, you're thinking just about that day. You're just trying to get better that day. One thing that we constantly think about in training camp is conditioning, and that's just not lining up and running gassers, right? That's the amount of reps that you get in a row, that might be something that we do in the weight room on the burst climber or the bike, that could be gassers, that could be a no-huddle period, a two-minute period.

"I do think that one thing that we'll always focus on, because I think how important it is, without giving too much away, is early on in the season: it pays dividends to be in the right weight, and it pays dividends to be in good shape, and there's ways to get in good shape."

While keeping everyone in one piece, and as healthy as possible, at the starting line of a 17-game season, with the expectation for a few more much bigger games after.

"We feel good about what we've done," Sirianni said. "And just because we've been really good in those first games doesn't mean that we didn't say to ourselves, 'Hey, this could be a little better.' 'Let's make this adjustment here,' which we have.

"So, it's just a process with every different schedule, where you've been paying very close attention to detail with every different schedule that you're presented in the NFL."

The Eagles' preseason and season-opener history from the past few years:

Year	Record	Wk 1 Result	Season Result
2021	0-2-1	@ATL, W 32-6	9-8, Lost WC
2022	1-2-0	@DET, W 38-35	14-3, Lost SB
2023	0-2-1	@NE, W 25-20	11-6, Lost WC
2024	2-1-0	GB, W 34-29	14-3, Won SB
2025	2-1-0	DAL, W 24-20	11-6, Lost WC
2026*	0-2-0	WSH, TBD	TBD
Totals	5-9-2	5-0	59-26