Nick Sirianni on Sunday in London took full responsibility for his decision to kick off to Ameer Abdullah before the Jaguars’ game-winning field goal with no time left. He said, “I cost us that game.” But Sirianni isn’t apologizing for the sequence that led to the Eagles’ go-ahead field goal just before that in the fourth quarter. In the wake of the 19-17 loss, that sequence has been criticized as much — if not more — than the decision to kick off. “I stand by what I did in that situation,” Sirianni said on Monday afternoon. “Had 8 seconds left to go in the game once we gave the ball back to them and that’s where my decision is that I regret of what I did then after that. But to give them back the ball with 8 seconds left I think we did what we needed to do as an offense. And you obviously saw the success of Jake’s kick in that particular case.” If you’ve tried to completely erase the end of that loss from your brain, let’s refresh your memory. The Eagles were down 16-14 when they got the ball back at their own 38-yard line with just 1:35 left. And, against all odds, they began to move the football. Eventually, a 17-yard pass to Dallas Goedert got them down to the Jacksonville 34-yard line, which is where things got tricky. At that point, there were 25 seconds remaining and the Jaguars had one timeout. Instead of sitting on the ball and potentially losing yardage to make a tough kick tougher, Sirianni wanted the Eagles to be aggressive. “It’s a little more complicated than I think people understand,” Sirianni said. “And my opinion is that people stop trying. You get to around the 35, you’re in range, and people stop kind of trying to advance the ball forward. When you advance the ball forward, you make the kicker’s job easier. We are all trying to do our part to help each other be at their best.” On first down, Jalen Hurts threw an incompletion that took just four seconds off the clock and preserved that final Jaguars timeout. On second down, Hurts hit Makai Lemon on an out route, but the rookie was tackled out of bounds after a 7 yard gain, which still preserved that timeout. On third down, the Eagles tried to run and lost three yards; Jacksonville called a timeout with 12 seconds left. So why not run the ball before third down? Sirianni, in the course of his long answer, gave his rationale. “In that situation, you’re trying to move the ball forward,” he said. “Running it is an option, obviously. But with what Jacksonville was doing in that particular case, it wasn’t going to be an option. You saw what happened when we ran it on the third down. “I never think that it’s something that you can say, ‘OK, I’m going to wait till third down to pass the ball.’ You have no idea how many times it’s going to take you to advance the ball a little bit more forward. … In my opinion, I think you see a lot of times teams take their foot off the gas there.  “Now, you’d love for the last play of the game to be your kick. But you’d also say, hey, if I can get that clock under 20 seconds, you’re accomplishing that as well. Leading into that last play (the kickoff), I said what I said yesterday. I stand by that. I did not make the decision that I wanted to make there in that particular case and it cost us. There’s nothing else to be said about that.” The one play that has stuck with many fans is the seven-yard pass to Lemon, who got tackled out of bounds. If Lemon is able to stay in there, the Jags are forced to use their final timeout and the Eagles can wind down the clock for their field goal attempt with no time remaining. Sirianni said that route was used to get the ball out of Hurts’ hand quickly against a zero blitz. He also mentioned how getting a first down would have been beneficial and that catch got them closer. “Like I said, it didn’t work out,” Sirianni said. “We gave them the ball back with 8 seconds. Ideally, in those situations, you want to try to give it to them back with no time. You ideally want it to be the last play of the game. But to get it down to eight seconds, I thought the offense did what they were supposed to do. And then, as I’ve explained to you guys, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do after that. “I do believe the offense did everything they could do. Would we love for the kick to be the last situation? Obviously. It wasn’t in this particular case, but we got it under 10 seconds and that to me is not why we lost that game.” This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. ...read more read less