The Art of Boring - Nick Sirianni's Relationship With Boring Fundamentals
On December 1, 2024 the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Nick Sirianni stepped to the podium at M&T Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.
Winners of eight games in a row, the Eagles had just defeated AFC North power, the Baltimore Ravens in a cross-conference matchup between not only two of the best teams in the National Football League, but two of the best quarterbacks in the league in Lamar Jackson for the Ravens and the ultimate game manager, Jalen Hurts for the Eagles. A grueling 24-19 win between two great teams. A wonderful opportunity to test and find out where the team is at before heading into the holidays and the end of the regular season.
It felt like a critical point in the season. Even the reporters could feel it. The Eagles were on a roll, having just defeated one of the AFC’s best. Their last loss was way back on September 29, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Along with the Ravens, they disposed of the Browns, Giants, Bengals, Jaguars, Cowboys, Commanders, and Rams. Their next opponent? The Carolina Panthers were reeling and sitting at a 3-10 record.
It would be easy to chalk the next one up as a win as well. The Eagles were heading for another win in week 14. Maybe it would be time to look past Carolina and get ready for another test in the 10–4 Pittsburgh Steelers? Even the most disciplined performers are tempted to look past weaker teams ahead to more stringent opponents, and even way into the future toward far out goals and milemarkers.
A reporter asked the 43 year old Nick Sirianni “In the spirit of doing well, do you express to your players that if you stay this way, the carrot of being the number one seed is there?”
The carrot of being the number one seed comes with a whole host of benefits. A first round bye. A critical opportunity to rest players and heal bumps and bruises. Home field advantage, meaning all games will be in Philadelphia instead of having to travel into other hostile environments. It’s a big deal to be the number one seed. And after a big win against the Ravens with a few weeks left in the season it was firmly within reach for Nick Sirianni and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Here was his response to the reporter:
“I’m boring. We’re going to be thinking about the Carolina Panthers. What I’ve learned in this league is that you’re climbing a mountain, if you look back you’re going to slip, if you look too far up, you’re going to slip. All that our focus is just one game at a time. We can’t control anything else that happens. Our job is to control what we control. That doesn't make for good press, or good stories. We’re boring. But the monotony, the boring, the day by day grind, is what gets results. So we’ll continue to keep narrow focus and focus on this next week.”
In his very direct, brief 105 word response, Nick Sirianni delivers a crash course on mastery, the pursuit of excellence, high performance and the secret to what disciplined people have figured out.
Most people spend their entire working lives trying to find a way to skirt around the monotony of the pursuit. They change routines. Search for new hacks. Drop endeavors because they feel stale. Quit pursuits because they don’t feel magical or provide the hit of dopamine they thought it would. It’s even more difficult in an era where we get instant hits from swiping and scrolling, changing the queue of things promising to entertain us and alleviate our longings.
Sirianni (and the Eagles) aren’t skirting around it, they are recognizing monotony for what it is - a critical feature of the pursuit of mastery. An indicator you’re on the right track to getting results.
Boring vs Boredom
It’s interesting as I even type this article in Google Docs, the built-in editor in Google has inserted the squiggly blue line underneath the word “Boring” in Nick Siranni’s quote. It’s suggesting that I change the word from “boring” to “bored.” Google, along with most people wrongly assume that doing boring work means you are in fact bored. It wants to change Coach Sirianni’s quote from “I’m boring.” to “I’m bored,” and “We’re boring,” to “We’re bored.”
But see that is the thing. Nick Siranni and the Philadelphia Eagles are not bored. Bored is defined as “feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity.”
While I’m not in the locker room, I am highly suspicious of the idea that a team at the top margins of high performance in one of the most competitive leagues in the world is walking around “feeling weary because they are unoccupied or lack interest” in the climb.
I’m suspicious because it would fly in the face of all that we’ve come to know about the pursuit of mastery. It’s hard for me to imagine that a true master of their craft “lacks interest.”
In fact, the tidal wave of interest is not only what propels someone to begin the pursuit of mastery, but also fuels their pursuit of mastery even through boring tasks, routines, and days.
Boredom, “the feeling of weariness from a lack of interest,” is incompatible with the development of mastery (possessing a high level of skill, knowledge, or expertise in a specific area). I’ve never come across a bored coach who led with zeal and energy and passion. Can you imagine a conversation with a bored Olympic Gold medalist? A bored Heisman trophy winner? An uninterested national champion? The costs of true high performance are too high. Mastery weeds out the uninterested with the slow winding long path. The work in the dark is too monotonous for an uninterested champion to emerge at the end of the journey.
Boring, defined as “not interesting, tedious,’ however is firmly associated with the champion’s journey. That’s what throws us all for a loop. The actual process that gets results is incredibly not interesting and tedious. Day after day of the same routine. Logging mile after mile. Eating the same diet. Plugging away on the same combination of tasks and objectives. Utterly unsexy, ruthless consistency to the fundamentals.
What Nick Sirianni is pointing to is a profound distinction between boring and boredom. The ability to fully fulfill the boring, not interesting, tedious tasks required for greatness, while NOT feeling bored or weary, crippled by a lack of interest.
This combination becomes ground zero for all who are pursuing mastery.
The Paradox of High Performance
The gridlock of high performance hinges on our relationship with boring and boredom. It almost seems like a contradiction - the best aren’t bored with the mundane, they love it, they are highly interested in the task, they wouldn’t want to be doing anything else but they do find the repetitive tasks boring, it is a day to day grind, it’s the same schedule, the same diet, the same old boring process that leads to results, you can’t get around it.
“That doesn't make for good press, or good stories. We’re boring. But the monotony, the boring, the day by day grind, is what gets results. So we’ll continue to keep narrow focus and focus on this next week.”
The best in their craft have found this sweet spot lane in which they are enthralled and highly interested in the domain, AND they do the boring, stupid basic stuff, every single day. They’re highly interested, and highly disciplined to do the mundane tasks with boredom firmly in place.
There’s a myth surrounding motivated people. We like to think the most motivated people wake up every day like it’s Christmas morning. Rushing down the stairs and toward the most tedious and mundane tasks. But in reality the best of the best have structured their relationship with boring in a way that keeps their joy and drive intact. They recognize boring as a feature of mastery, not a sign they are off track.
The critical question is - Can you perform the boring tasks, the mundane tasks and assignments, day after day, week after week, year after year, and prevent yourself from “the feeling of weariness and disinterest”?
The Art of Boring
Nick Siranni has figured out the art of boring. That boring, monotony, and tedious tasks done with or without joy are what gets the results. At some point as we climb the ranks of competition and mastery the game within the game becomes the ability to enjoy the monotony rather than loathe the monotony with weary emotions. Weariness is an energy issue. It’s extreme tiredness or fatigue. Weariness may be the first indication of burnout. The absence of enjoyment.
We can engage in “the grind” by way of the deep understanding that this is what it takes to be great. Or we can engage in “the grind” by way of extreme tiredness and fatigue. One way leads to mastery. The other leads to exhaustion.
Back in 2023, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show. They talked about a number of topics but landed right at the heart of boredom, boring, and mastery. They discussed how Jerry Seinfeld mastered his craft of stand-up comedy.
“That’s your day, you just sit and memorize all this material?” Howard Stern asked Seinfeld.
“Howard, you do it over and over and over.” Seinfeld says. “You say to Tiger Woods, “How do you remember which club to use? What the hell else does this guy got to do?”
“So if someone says to you “Oh you’re so naturally funny.” And you are so naturally funny, but they don’t realize the amount of work that goes into it.” Stern responds.
“It’s like going into the gym everyday. You know how you walk into the gym everyday and say “Oh geez I have to do this again today?” Seinfeld says.
“It sounds like a tortured life.” Stern says.
“It is a torture. But you know what? Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you’re comfortable with, and that’s marriage, it’s kids, it’s work, it’s exercise, it’s not eating the food you want to eat. Find the torture you’re comfortable with and you will do well.” Seinfeld concludes.
That is the art of boring. Finding the torture that you’re comfortbale with. A compatible relationship with the required boring that comes in the pursuit of mastery.
Nick Sirianni has figured out not only the value of boring, but the art of boring. The monotony, the boring repetitive tasks that an outsider would look at and go “I can’t believe he does all this.” He’s figured out the focused pursuit of mastery is pretty vanilla. It’s uninteresting to reporters and outside fans in a world wanting to be entertained.
But when you’re on the side of the mountain, it’s not time for the thrills of entertainment and novelty. It’s time for the process that works. Controlling what you can control. Your preparation, and concentration on the most important things. The commitment and re-commitment to the fundamentals.
When invited by this reporter to pontificate about the future, make a comment about looking ahead to clinch the number one seed in the NFC, Sirianni doesn’t take the bait. Choosing instead to use the public opportunity to reinforce the private mindset. “We’re not an interesting story, we’re doubling down on the boring work of controlling what we can control and taking things one game at a time.”
Climbing Up The Mountain
When it came to the number one seed, the Eagles actually didn’t get it. You would think all the doubling down on “one game at a time” would guarantee success and constant wins. That’s not the way things work at the highest margins of high performance.
The Eagles would go on to defeat the Carolina Panthers in week 14. Drub the Steelers in week 15 by a 27-13 margin. With just a few weeks to go, jockeying with the Detroit Lions for the number one seed, the Eagles would fall to the Commanders on the road in Washington the week of Christmas in a barn-burner 36-33.
In the postgame press conference Siranni had this to say, “Just sloppy. Sloppy with penalties, sloppy with too many on the field, sloppy with our fundamentals. When you play a good football team and you’re sloppy, it’s going to be hard to win. When it’s sloppy with every piece of that it’s always going to be on me as the head coach.”
The closer to the summit, the more champions reinforce what’s most important - fundamentals. The Eagles were three weeks from postseason play and Sirianni used the opportunity to bring things back to the basics. Boring, monotonous, blocking and tackling. Executing. No fluff, no rah-rah, the monotony of doing the basics really well.
The Eagles end the season with two wins against the Cowboys and the Giants and then head into a magical postseason run.
In the four rounds of the playoffs the number 2 seed, Eagles won each matchup by an average of 17 point margin. They were clicking.
In the Wild Card round they beat the Packers 22-10. In the Divisional Round they beat the Rams 28-22. Then, in the final two rounds they obliterated the Commanders 55-23 and halted the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty 40-22 in one of the worst defeats in Chiefs’ quarterback, Patrick Mahomes career.
They played their best ball when it mattered most. They executed the best when the stakes were the highest. Why?
“We’re boring.”
I can’t help but think that Nick Sirianni’s full commitment to the monotonous, boring, day to day is what got the results in the end.
We tend to think the deeper we get in the climb it will require something “extra.” Some new level of performance we’ve never been at.
This lie forces athletes to press and get outside themselves on bigger stages. The reality is when the stakes are the highest things must center around the same boring fundamentals that have been mastered in the quiet long before the noise of the crowd.
It’s always going to be about boring, unsexy things. Blocking and tackling, execution on the fundamentals. A master of their craft is able to do the same boring things on the biggest stage that they’ve done alone.
It’s Jerry Seinfeld delivering the same set in front of thousands that he practiced in front of the mirror.
It’s AJ Brown relying on the same highlighted pages in Inner Excellence during the biggest games he read on quiet mornings before training camp.
It’s Nick Sirianni measuring success late in the season, based on penalty yards given, focus on and execution of the same fundamentals he would have been measuring on day one of training camp in July.
It all comes back to the art of boring. Can you maintain discipline in the monotony of mastery the higher you climb your mountain? Or is it going to become a quest for the new hack, the new pursuit, the new novelty to alleviate your feelings of weariness?
Sometimes boredom is a sign to change paths. I’ve switched paths many times in my life. It may be time to climb a different mountain. Other times boredom is a sign our relationship with mastery is off kilter and needs adjusted. When we’re skirting and trying to work around the work. When we’re trying to avoid the very thing we need to engage with in order to get better, something in our mindset needs to be adjusted.
Monotony is the feature of mastery. This is what we’re signing up for. It’s the basic fundamental indicator you are on the path to realizing your full potential.
If the routine is not boring - you may not be fully committed to what it’s going to take.
But if you’re bored with the basics - you’ll never climb the mountain to realize your full potential.
We must master the art of boring if we’re ever going to master the art of our craft.
Stay The Course,
