Nick Sirianni went for it. Failed. Now the Eagles are a team in crisis after 24-20 collapse against the Rams.

Blame injuries if you like. That’s a loser’s excuse.

The Eagles led by 10 with 7½ minutes to play, at home, against a one-win team that lacked its two best defensive players.

Then head coach Nick Sirianni went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 2, called a pass play after running it down the Rams’ throats, gave away three points, and revived the Rams and reinvigorated Matthew Stafford, who’d thrown two horrendous interceptions and looked more like he was 68 than 38.

Suddenly, the Eagles’ pass-rush evaporated. Stafford drove the Rams 98 yards for a touchdown.

A quick three-and-out later and the Rams got it back again. Stafford, now surgical, drove them 79 yards in 1 minute, 45 seconds, took a 24-20 lead, and that was that.

Nick knew what was coming. For the next week, he’ll hear about fourth-and-2.

“I want to make it a three-score game right there,” Sirianni said. “Fourth-and-goal from the 2, you know, [a touchdown and] you leave them in a true backed-up scenario.”

Fourth-and-goal from the 2 converts at about a 50% rate, and the overall scenario — you’re still up by 10, late in the game, against a team that has struggled to score — skews hard toward going for it.

However, fourth-and-goal from the 2 with Saquon Barkely, Lane Johnson, and DeVonta Smith is markedly different than fourth-and-2 with three vastly inferior backups, and that was Sirianni’s reality.

He ignored it.

He went with the chart.

Burned.

“I’m very well aware of how fourth-down decisions come as the head coach,” he said. “You go for it and you get it, great. You go for it and you don’t get it, that’s on the head coach.”

Yep.

If the math on Sunday doesn’t work for you, you have to look past simple numbers. You have to ignore analytics, if you pocket-protector types can do so for even 10 seconds.

You have to understand momentum. You have to know that a 13-point deficit is more than just three points more than a 10-point deficit. It is a higher mountain to climb.

No: Sirianni had Sean McVay dead to rights, and he blew it. Sirianni was 4-0 against the NFL’s current poster child for conceptual genius, but now he’s 4-1. Sirianni was 0-5 as a home underdog, and now, going off as 3½-point dogs Sunday, he’s 0-6.

The goal-to-go audacity was the only the second-worst fourth-down decision Sirianni made.

Leading by 10, he faced fourth-and-1 from the Eagles’ 38 just before the end of the third quarter. That Tush Push failed.

However, a suspicious blind-side block penalty pushed the Rams out of field-goal range, and a failed fourth-down play from the Rams gave the Birds the ball back, without injury to the score.

Injury was the theme of the day.

Starting right tackle Lane Johnson (personal reasons), left guard Landon Dickerson (knee), top receiver DeVonta Smith (hamstring), linebacker Zack Baun (concussion), tight end Dallas Goedert (knee), and safety Marcus Epps (groin) all were known to be unavailable before the game.

During the game, the Birds lost Saquon Barkley, who pulled his right hamstring on the Eagles’ fourth offensive snap; Pro Bowl cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, who left in the third quarter with a knee injury on the first play from scrimmage; defensive end Jonathan Greenard, the offseason trade-and-sign gem, who left in the third quarter with an ankle injury; and Tank Bigsby, Barkley’s chief understudy, who appeared to strain his groin with just under 4 minutes to play. None of them returned.

By the end, the Birds lacked 10 of their top 23 players, about 44% of their frontline personnel and, arguably, five of their top eight players.

So what, said quarterback Jalen Hurts. Injuries are excuses.

“I don’t think we felt that when we had an opportunity to make it a three-score game,” Hurts said.

Besides, there were lots of other issues. The Eagles were 0-for-12 on third down Sunday, which makes them 2-for-21 combined with their Monday night loss in Chicago. They failed to score in the second halves of both games.

They also committed 10 penalties Sunday, at home, in the fourth game of the season.

Hurts said the team continually has problems aligning itself at the line of scrimmage. On Sunday, he was caught cursing at receiver Elijah Moore for lining up improperly: “Get off the [bleeping] ball!”

Penalties, presnap mistakes, inefficiency all around.

Injuries?

That’s bad luck.

They don’t excuse bad coaching.

The Birds just blew it.

Up 10 with about 4 minutes left, at home, in the rain, against a jet-lagged West Coast team that started the game at 10 a.m., according to their body clocks? You have to win that game.

Now, there are a raft of injuries that might cripple the Birds for weeks to come, if not months.

And, as ever, there is ineptness, the continued hubris of a coach with a Super Bowl in his pocket and a $17 million salary that gets paid regardless of how many boneheaded, analytics-based decisions he makes.

And, more than anything in this moment, a crushing, unnecessary loss.