Editor’s Note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic’s new desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Peak aims to connect readers to ideas they can implement in their own personal and professional lives. Follow Peak here.
Nick Sirianni’s first impression sucked. Everyone knew it. Even him.
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When he introduced himself as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021, he gave one of the least inspiring news conferences in recent memory — he had nervous delivery, awkward syntax, a preoccupation with the word “systems.”
“The first part of being smart is knowing what to do,” Sirianni told reporters then. “We’re gonna know — we’re gonna have systems in place that (pause) … are easier to learn.
“We need to have systems in place, and we will have systems in place.”
The resulting footage went viral. Headlines followed. The sentiments were best summed up via quote-tweet:
Really want to see the interviews where someone said “yes, this the guy I want to lead my team” https://t.co/t6gcsJn7DA
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) January 29, 2021
As it happened, the first impression remained surprisingly durable. In his first four seasons in Philly, Sirianni made the playoffs four times, won two division titles and had the highest winning percentage among active coaches. But before the Eagles destroyed the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, few would have ranked Sirianni’s among the league’s top coaches.
Sure, some of it was football. Sirianni oversaw a late-season collapse in 2023, the Eagles organization had won before him, and he coached with a brash, unvarnished persona. (In October, he famously taunted a group of Philly fans after a win over Cleveland.)
But at least part of the answer may have come in the form of a century-old cognitive bias called the “halo effect,” which can cloud our perceptions and negatively impact our decision making.
As the Eagles visit the White House on Monday to celebrate their championship, Sirianni offers an interesting entry point to explore two connected ideas: We make snap judgments in seconds, and our first impressions are powerful.
They are also often wrong.
In 1920, the famous American psychologist Edward Thorndike conducted an experiment. He began by asking a series of military officers to rate their subordinates on traits like intelligence, physique, leadership and character. There was a catch: The officers had never spoken to the soldiers they were ranking.
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When the results came in, Thorndike discovered something intriguing. When a soldier was taller and more attractive, they were determined to be a better leader. When their superficial traits were viewed as negative, so was their leadership and character.
In other words, there was a correlation between unrelated negative and positive traits. Thorndike called the phenomenon the “halo effect” — while the inverse became known as the “horns effect.”
“The term has been in use in psychology for a century, but it has not come into wide use in everyday language,” psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote in his best-selling 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” “This is a pity because the halo effect is a good name for a common bias that plays a large role in shaping our view of people.”
For most sports fans, it’s an intuitive idea. Think of the baseball player who starts the season scorching hot at the plate, only to fade in the course of the season. It takes a while for perception to catch up to reality.
Yet recent research has shown just how quickly initial impressions can form — and just how unconscious our judgments can be.
Alexander Todorov, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, studies perception, judgment and decision making. He has dedicated much of his career to studying the unconscious judgments about competence that people often make in seconds. In a paper published in 2006, Todorov and co-author Janine Willis found they could accurately predict U.S. Senate elections at a 70 percent clip just by showing people two unfamiliar faces for 100 milliseconds and asking which one seemed more competent.
“A lot of this is built on stereotypes and generalizations from whatever people observe in the world,” Todorov said.
The snap judgments can be consequential. In another famous study concerning the halo effect, psychologist Solomon Asch had participants read two lists of adjectives describing two different people. The adjectives were identical, but the orders were reversed. When people heard positive traits first, they rated the person more highly. When the negative attributes came first, their overall impression diminished.
It’s enough, Virginia Tech professor Juan Luis Nicolau said, to wonder about the utility of introductory news conferences, where coaches are judged on superficial traits — speaking style, presentation, charisma — that are only loosely correlated with the traits needed to be a head coach.
When the Eagles hired Sirianni, then an offensive coordinator with the Indianapolis Colts, owner Jeffrey Lurie touted the process. They conducted research, created a list of 25 names and then culled it to 10. Sirianni’s interview — held over the course of two days — lasted 10 to 12 hours. Sirianni had never interviewed for a head-coaching job, but Lurie came away with a deep belief: Here was a coach “who connects with everybody,” he said at Sirianni’s first news conference.
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Sirianni was the fifth coach Lurie hired he since bought the Eagles in 1994, and the previous four all made the playoffs within two seasons. If there was a secret, it was focusing on fit and culture.
“The first step, I think, in being a great coach in modern football today — modern sports today — is to care very much about the players and coaches you work with,” Lurie said at Sirianni’s first news conference.
Sirianni had what Lurie called the “hidden sauce.” He exuded authenticity and care. He possessed “an edge.”
“I think he’ll be himself, and at times, it will be with an edge,” Lurie said.
In many ways, Lurie’s scouting report was spot on. When Sirianni arrived in Philly, he brought a swagger. He talked trash on the sidelines (and after games). He wore his emotions like a Philly fan, his mouth agape, his motor running hot. When the Eagles crushed the Giants in the NFC Divisional Round in 2023, Sirianni danced in celebration and jawed with the officials: “I know what the (expletive) I’m doing.” When the Eagles struggled in a 20-16 victory over the Browns in October, improving to 3-2, he yelled at his own fans.
What was less apparent was how he excelled behind the scenes, in the moments of one-on-one connection. He welcomed players into his office for chats. He outlined five core values: football IQ, physicality, toughness, details and connection. He delivered detailed — and somewhat confusing — metaphors about plants. In the last team meetings before games, tight end Dallas Goedert said, Sirianni instituted a tradition. The players would walk around the room and embrace one another.
“The first thing we do in a team meeting is we all stand up, we go around the room and dap each other up,” Goedert said.
To long-time Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham, Sirianni differed from someone like former Eagles coach Andy Reid, who built culture with gravitas, professionalism and respect. Instead he had his own secret weapon. He talked … a lot. And to everyone.
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“Even if it’s for a split second,” linebacker Zack Baun said.
“We call them bars,” Darius Slay said. “He got bars.”
Instead of ignoring the outside noise, he often leaned in. When it came to leadership, he erred on the side of too much detail. “Nick over-emphasizes because he wants to make sure that you get it,” Graham said.
Perhaps the best way to describe his communication style, players say, is real — and raw.
“He says these things, and sometimes you’re kind of wondering what he’s talking about,” Goedert said. “And then, three weeks later, he brings it back up and explains a little bit deeper.”
Sirianni was not always the perfect coach. When the Eagles stumbled at the end of the 2023 season, the team’s brass responded by overhauling the team’s coordinators. He also had to navigate a strained relationship with quarterback Jalen Hurts. But on the whole, the connectivity inside the locker room was what Lurie imagined when the Eagles took a chance on Sirianni.
“It doesn’t get talked about maybe that often, but for the Eagles, culture remains the most important thing,” Lurie said. “And in our world today, there’s such polarization, there’s such a disconnect between people … It’s really valuable to have somebody that innately and genuinely cares about who they work with.”
Sirianni has long been honest about his flawed first impression.
“My first press conference sucked,” he said in February.
He’s also been consistent about the reasons. When he was an offensive coordinator in Indianapolis, he did not train to excel in news conference settings. He focused on helping his players.
In another era, his performance may have come and gone, remarked upon by reporters and reported in the daily coverage. But in 2021, the footage was noticed by millions via television, social media and YouTube.
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Fortunately for Sirianni, the halo (or horns) effect is not permanent. It can fade over time, as people receive new information, whether in the form of additional news conferences or, most likely, success or failure.
But according to experts like Nicolau and Todorov, it can also offer a few lessons. Sometimes it’s worth interrogating your perception. The traits that might help you make a strong first impression are not always the skills that may help you excel in a job.
In moments, Sirianni may not look like the conventional leader of an NFL football team. But the Eagles found a Super Bowl-winning coach by asking themselves deeper questions: What are we missing? What really matters?
“Two words,” offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said. “Walk and talk. He talks the talk. He walks the walk.”
Rustin Dodd is a senior writer for Peak, The Athletic’s new desk covering leadership, personal development and success. He last wrote about what we can learn about leadership from Gene Hackman and “Hoosiers.” Follow Peak here.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Mitchell Leff / GettyImages)
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