The Philadelphia Eagles’ stunning late-season collapse and blowout loss in the NFC Wild Card Round was perhaps the most surprising development of the 2023 NFL season.
The reigning NFC Champions started out 10-1 before dropping five of their final six regular season games. Their late-season unraveling allowed the Dallas Cowboys to win the NFC East, and the Eagles’ season ended with a humiliating 32-9 Wild Card Round loss to Baker Mayfield’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Making things more peculiar? The NFL’s ban on Eagles chief security officer Dom DiSandro (known as “Big Dom”) is being cited as a reason for the team’s unexpected meltdown.
According to a report from Derrick Gunn of JAKIB Sports, the league’s suspension of “Big Dom” hurt the Eagles in that he was unable to contain the emotions of head coach Nick Sirianni. As Gunn noted, Sirianni was seen exploding aplenty on the sidelines with players and coaches without Big Dom present:
Big Dom was banned from the sidelines for the remainder of the regular season after a heated confrontation with San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw during the Week 13 contest at Lincoln Financial Field:
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Without Big Dom’s support, Sirianni’s anger and frustrations clearly increased, while the Eagles’ usually proudction on the field decreased. The result was a wasted season for a team that was a non-James Bradberry holding call away from potentially winning Super Bowl 57 a year ago.
