PHILADELPHIA — The latest signs of Nick Sirianni‘s maturation as an NFL coach came a little before 1 p.m. on Tuesday, when he walked into the auditorium to field questions about his new contract extension.

He did not flex into the camera and yell, “Hey, I don’t hear any [expletive] anymore!”

He did not pace up and down the aisle pointing to his ear as if to say, “What happened to the boos?”

Most notably, he did not sit down next to an easel with a picture of a flower coming through the ground with the roots growing out.

But he could have.

Part of me thinks he should have.

Say what you will about Sirianni’s cringeworthy moments. He can be goofy. He can be corny. He can be immature, naive, unprofessional. Any one of them might fit in any given moment. The mistake people make is when they use those moments to define the man.

Sometimes, the highlight reel is an accurate reflection. Same goes for the blooper reel. Most often, a man’s true nature is not captured by a compilation of his best or worst moments. Much more instructive are the results of his work, and the testimony of those who’ve borne firsthand witness.

The good thing about results is they speak for themselves. At 48-20, Sirianni is one of five coaches with a .700-plus career record and he is the only one in history with four playoff appearances, two Super Bowl appearances, and a title in his first four seasons. The limited company he keeps suggests it is not something a coach can easily bumble into.

The words of his players speak the loudest.

“I think about that time in his press conference when he talked ‘bout the flower, and I just want to give him his flowers,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said Tuesday. “He‘s done a phenomenal job of building the culture of this club. ... All the scrutiny that he‘s gotten and to be able to come back every year and preach the message but also correct his mistakes and show accountability. He‘s always me-first, then you. He says it’s not coaching-led, it’s player-led. He gives us our space to create that culture as well. We feed off of that. We balance each other. He means incredibly a lot to me, but also this team, this franchise.”

Sirianni’s players’ actions speak loudly, too. When A.J. Brown heard the news of Sirianni’s contract extension, he immediately picked up his phone and texted his coach.

“I told him I’m done when he‘s done,” the All-Pro wide receiver said with a smile.

There is clearly much more to Sirianni than meets the public eye. Even early on, it seemed likely that he was a more serious coach than he played on TV. Think back to the two acts of his rookie season.

— Act I: A comic series of events that leads the audience to believe that their beloved football team has hired a coach who is Ted Lasso without the wits. First, an opening video conference where Sirianni sounds like an intern who accidentally stumbled into a board meeting. Next, a pre-draft process in which Sirianni reveals that part of his evaluation process is playing rock, paper, scissors. Then, a 2-5 start that culminates with Sirianni comparing his team to a flowering plant after a loss to the woeful Raiders.

— Act II: A montage of the Eagles winning seven out of nine games and making the playoffs, set to “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

It wasn’t far-fetched to think that Sirianni’s Friday night football vibes would land flat in a world of serious professionals who want to be treated like men. But if that was the case, the Eagles would not have gone from 2-7 to 9-8. That they did was instructive.

What we saw from there was mostly a moving of goalposts. I think the kids call it “cope.”

By the end of 2022, when the Eagles had won 23 of their last 29 games and nearly won the Super Bowl, it was no longer possible to think Sirianni was a Dunder Mifflin middle manager who’d somehow talked his way into a job as an NFL head coach. Instead, he was a frat boy president who got elected in a good economy and surrounded himself with great advisers.

Even that narrative seemed dead by Week 12 of 2023, as the Eagles beat the high-powered Bills to improve to 10-1. Winning 33 of 40 over 2 1/2 years wasn’t quite enough to prove Sirianni’s aptitude, but it sure pointed in that direction. Fortunately, the Eagles lost six of their last seven, thus proving he should be fired.

“When you are self-motivated, the outside noise doesn’t affect you and shouldn’t affect you,” Sirianni said. “You put your head down and you work to get better.”

The true portrait of Sirianni is there if you know where to look. Like anybody who thrives, he has his flaws. The difference between the good eggs and the bad eggs is the nature that spawns them. The thing about Sirianni’s boisterousness, his clumsiness, his emotion, is that they come from a good place. It is a combination of competitiveness, of genuineness, and of a steadfast belief in his ability as a coach. It is difficult to dislike a person who means well, works hard, and gets results. In fact, all three tend to be contagious. You want to emulate them and pay it forward. Get a locker room full of people doing those things and good things tend to happen.

For a coach who draws such negative headlines for his brashness, it’s interesting that his greatest strength is his humility. He is not a coach who thinks he can fit uniquely shaped pegs into preordained boxes. He does not need you to think he is an X’s and O’s genius. He thinks coaching is about teaching, and preparing, and leading. He doesn’t care that those things happen behind the scenes. If he occasionally acts a fool, well, his bad. But he doesn’t mean anything by it. Besides, sometimes playing the fool can help a team by running interference.

The greatest evidence of Sirianni’s strength as a coach is his relationship with Jalen Hurts. They are two men cut from different cloths, composed of different temperaments, forged from different backgrounds. Those situations demand two men who are willing to make it work and at least one who is willing to be the more humble.

On Tuesday, the Eagles’ quarterback spoke the words that spoke the loudest about the head coach.

“Everything he‘s been able to achieve and accomplish, he‘s earned,” Hurts said.

It would be a fitting end if, as Hurts said later, they are just getting started.

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