5:12 PM: On Christmas Eve, it’s clear that Saquon Barkley got a great gift by joining the Eagles two seasons ago.

In the locker room on Wednesday, Barkley impromptu began speaking about how he doesn’t understand why Head Coach Nick Sirianni isn’t shown more love. Barkley said he thinks of Sirianni as the best coach in the NFL, and his resume speaks for itself.

According to Elias Sports, Sirianni is the only head coach in the Super Bowl Era to produce five playoff appearances with at least four 10+ win seasons, three division crowns, two conference titles, and a Super Bowl Championship during their first five career seasons.

“When people compare who’s the best and who’s not, and for coaches, it’s about winning,” Barkley said. “He would say himself what makes a great coach is having great players. Obviously, the Philadelphia Eagles have been a great team since I’ve been in the league, going against them and now playing with them. But there’s something to his standard that he sets, there’s something to the way he comes to work, just how detailed and how obsessed he is with all the little things.

“There’s a reason why we do a really good job of protecting the ball. There’s a reason why we do a really good job of tackling. That all stems from him. It starts with him, and then he trickles it down to the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and then all the assistant coaches, and the leaders on team, we gotta all take that message and make it work. But he’s been doing a great job for the last five years, and it’s weird that you wouldn’t hear his name brought up. But I mean, he probably doesn’t care about that either.”

While Barkley has only played for Sirianni for two years, he’s very familiar with the coach. He played him twice a year while Barkley was with the Giants, and they also squared off in the 2022 divisional round.

In that game there was a viral video of Sirianni nodding his head as he looked into the camera, and Barkley said with a laugh that he couldn’t stand Sirianni after seeing that clip. He has brought that up to Sirianni since, but now that he works with him daily, he can see why he has had so much success in the NFL.

“Being here and seeing how obsessed he is, Hard Knocks and the behind scenes [stuff] that we have, that you guys are able to see with him coaching, it doesn’t really do it enough justice,” Barkley said. “He’s so obsessed with the little things. And there’s a reason why this team has been super successful.

“It’s been pretty cool to be able to go from going against him and not being a fan of him, and then seeing what he’s all about. I think he does a really good job. He’s the perfect coach for Philadelphia, what he stands for and how he operates. I think, literally, when you think of someone in Philly and a Philly fan. If I can picture a coach, and I had to picture a coach, it would be Coach Sirianni.” – Matt Ryan