There was no shortage of emotions during the 49ers and Eagles game, although Nick Sirianni and Kyle Shanahan tried keeping cooler heads.
Tempers flaring during Week 13’s high-intensity showdown between two NFC contenders, the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles, was going to be inevitable.
Eventually, after what happened in the NFC Championship game last January and in the wake of the smack talk thereafter, things were going to boil over when these same two teams met at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday afternoon.
The Niners eventually won big, winning 42-19 to get within a game of Philadelphia for the top NFC spot. Nonetheless, a series of situations in the third quarter reminded fans and pundits alike that the rivalry between these two teams is far from over.
And it might have been up to the two head coaches, Kyle Shanahan of San Francisco and Nick Sirianni of Philadelphia, to find a happy medium.
What happened was when 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw suplexed Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith near the sideline, resulting in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty and a lot of backlash from the Philadelphia sideline.
When Greenlaw got into an altercation with Eagles security chief Dom DiSandro, both of them jabbing at each other, it seemed inevitable that the Niners fan would be expelled from the game, which he was.
However, DiSandro is not a coach or a player, and he should not have that level of access (or influence) over another team’s player, which resulted in his own removal from the game.
However, DiSandro’s situation may be a bigger issue for the NFL to address, as teams would almost certainly swap a non-coach or non-player for another team’s marquee player in a two-way expulsion every time.
Shanahan and Sirianni weren’t having it, though.
Nick Sirianni speaks to Kyle Shanahan about 49ers-Eagles fight
