Nick Sirianni
Q. The three Georgia guys, the three first-round picks, OLB Nolan Smith, DT Jalen Carter, DT Jordan Davis, kind of tied together because of where they’re from, first-round picks. Where do you see them as far as acclimating to Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio’s defense and where they are? (Reuben Frank)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I think all three guys have shown moments of having a lot of good plays, and all of them have had bumps, too. But that’s every player. That’s not just limited to those guys. We’re 1-1 at this particular point, so there are going to be good plays, there are going to be bad plays. But, [I have] a lot of confidence in those guys and their abilities, why we drafted them in the first place, and what they can add to our defense. But we’ve got to be better as a whole. Better coaching, better playing on offense, better playing on defense.
Q. I know Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore is obviously calling the plays, but late in the fourth quarter, when there’s so much game strategy involved, what are the conversations like between the two of you? How does that communication work? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, just like it would early in the game, too, to be quite honest with you. Because you’re discussing, when you’re going for it on 4th down, what 3rd down needs to look like. And in attempts to go for 4th down, sometimes 3rd down is played a little differently, sometimes it’s not. All those discussions are happening. They’re happening, like I said, in the first quarter. They’re happening in the fourth quarter.
If [Offensive Coordinator] Kellen [Moore] and I are just having that conversation right then, then we’ve done a shitty job of getting ready all week. That conversation happens throughout. That conversation happened today of what we would be thinking in those scenarios, and it’s just, ‘Hey, remember we said in this scenario, boom.’ So that’s something that we prep for all week, and then it’s just little reminders within that. Because you’re right, calling the game is one thing, managing the game is another thing, but they have aspects of meshing together.
Q. To follow up on that, when you say what 3rd down might look like, on the second to last possession specifically, the 3rd-and-3, are you talking about ‘Is this a run or a pass, how many yards do we need to get to be willing to go for it on 4th down?’ (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, all those things that you talk through in that scenario. And past experiences, too, that we talk about. Like last week against Green Bay, we passed the ball in four-minute football a couple times to really seal that game and give the ball back to them late. It was the same scenario here. Those conversations happened last week leading into the game, ‘What are we going to do in this scenario here? What are we going to do in this scenario there? When are we willing to pass it? When we pass it, what are we thinking?’ and be ready and be willing to pass it because we’ve won a game that way. And then we also have lost some games where we just were too conservative and went run-run-run in those scenarios.
Q. Is it the case that– some people think it’s better to be up three than to be up six when you kick a field goal? (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I don’t believe that. If you look at the history of that call, initially you go through it — and I’m going to try to drag myself through the mud as much as I possibly can, because, quite frankly, that’s the only way you get better. Is to really look at your decisions, look at every decision you make and say, ‘Hey, did I make the right decision?’ And sometimes the play fails for whatever reason, but you’ve got to still look at it as each decision.
In that scenario, we’ve put ourselves in that before, and it was a little similar to the week before where we kicked the field goal. Now, there was less time left on the clock, but we were 4th-and-3 at the 3, which is arguably probably a little bit more — in my mind, you could go for that a little bit more in the Green Bay game than you do here.
So, what I did was look through the entire league. I said to our analytics department, ‘Could you give me every 4th down decision when teams are in range in four-minute offense?’ Because if you’re up 6, you’re kicking it every single time because that’s going to put you up two scores. So, I asked for every time it was 1 point to 5 points, the team was up, under four minutes, every 4th down from the 34 and in. And there were 4th-and-1s that were going for it. I think there were twelve 4th-and-1s, there was a 4th-and-3 that Houston went against Dallas for in 2022, and then there was a 4th-and-2 that the Jets went for against Tampa. But that was it, and the rest were field goals.
I’ve put myself in that situation prior to the call, so I felt like in the moment, my conviction in the moment was, I knew exactly what I wanted. Again, is the outcome always what you want? No, but your conviction in the call, I was completely convinced that kicking the field goal there was the right decision based on all my studies. Now, I come back, and I reevaluate it, and I’m even more convicted, to be quite honest with you, just because of everything that goes into that.
I think there’s something else that is very noticeable. As an offensive coach, there’s a stress having to score a touchdown when you’re giving the ball back to a team. There’s a stress in that. I get it, they get an extra down to do so, I understand all that. But there’s a different stress being down 6 as opposed to 3. That’s also my experience as an offensive coach. You know what, our defense had done a really — where we were getting hurt was in the run game, not necessarily them dropping back and passing. Obviously, we didn’t do a good enough job on that drive, but to that point, we had only given up 15 points and we were really salty in the red zone up to that point.
Q. How do you take that information and apply it to your own team, because obviously your own offense and the ’22 Texans’ offense are different. In that situation, how do you process that? (Brooks Kubena)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, so analytics are a piece. League study is a piece. This game always comes down to players and plays. What plays do you have the most confidence in with your players in those particular cases. So that’s where your confidence is coming from to go for things on that.
We’ve been pretty darned aggressive, and I think we’ve probably gone for it — I don’t think probably. We’ve gone for it more in our plus territory than anybody else in the NFL. Why? Because [T] Jordan Mailata. He’s sitting in here, so I say him first. Because [T] Lane Johnson, because [G] Landon Dickerson, because [QB] Jalen Hurts, because [WR] A.J. Brown, because of [WR] Devonta Smith, because of [TE] Dallas Goedert, because of [RB] Saquon Barkey. I could go on. Because of [C] Cam Jurgens, because of [G/T] Mekhi [Becton]. So those are your reasons why you go for it in those scenarios. Now, again, a four-minute scenario is a different scenario with the time, time-outs, all those different things, so those are treated differently. Because no decision that a coach makes is made just on a piece of paper that says, ‘The chart says to go for it here.’ It’s not that easy and it’s not that black and white. There are so many things that factor into it. Again, past experiences. So, let’s just talk — I’m in 4th down generally speaking right now. Past experiences, plays, players, and then plays.
I think about — we’ve had two wins against Dallas here in ’22 and in ’23 at home. Those both had 4th-and-3 conversions on our plus side of the field. When you convert it, nobody really thinks, ‘Oh, they converted that and they got 7 points out of this, not 3.’ When you fail, that onus is going to be on me, and I completely understand that and completely accept it.
But Dallas, we get the NFC championship game against the Niners, we go for it on 4th-and-3, and we get a scenario there.
Again, analytics is a piece of the puzzle. There are all those other things that go along with it.
Q. What does the chart say? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: What does the chart say in that particular case? My chart, what I say is to do, is to kick it. The chart is one thing. You guys can punch in the numbers. There are about 20 websites that you can punch in a number and say, ‘What did it say here?’ You all can see that. But I don’t — I base it off of what my studies have been and my conviction in my studies.
Q. What was the analytics suggestion for the 3rd down, whether to run or pass? (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: They don’t give suggestions on run or pass. Theirs was more of, ‘Should you go for it on 4th down’ and not what you should do, run or pass, there. But like I said, the game before — we lost some games last year in four-minute where we didn’t feel like we were aggressive enough. I kind of addressed this last week. But we held the ball for quite a long time. Our offensive line did a good job of blocking. Saquon did a good job of running.
You know, we won the game last week being aggressive in four-minute.
If you look at the play, too, the play prior to our 3rd down call, you can see that they’re bringing junk inside. And on that play, Landon had to take two on one of them, and he made this miraculous play that could have been called holding on. Because there are guys in every gap, and some of them, they’re bringing an extra guy in there. And if you look at it, Landon had to hook the guy so Saquon could make a great run. It wasn’t like it was a real clean look. So, we knew they were jamming it up inside, so we tried to push it to the outside. Sometimes you push it to the outside with the play that we ran, and sometimes you don’t. You do it with another play. That’s why we did what we did there. Again, conviction in it at the time, conviction in it still at this time.
Q. What’s wrong with the run defense? (Jeff McLane)
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, I think it always starts with us putting players in position to make plays. But after that, you’ve got to — everything when you talk about run defense and when you talk about playing defense is going to start with: Do you get off blocks, can you play on their side of the line of scrimmage and get off blocks, and can you make the tackles when you get there?
Regardless of what the call is — do we have to put them in different positions and try different things? Yeah, and the defense was trying to do that. But regardless of what the call is, it’s going to be how we put our hands on people, how we knock them back, how we shed that block, whether it’s a cut block or whether it’s an up-high block, and how we tackle after that. We have to build on those fundamentals, and I don’t want that to sound like — we have to do that as coaches. We have to put them in positions as far as how to strike blocks.
So, there’s two aspects of this. It’s us as coaches putting them in position to make plays, but it’s also us teaching them how to put their hands on blocks. We’re going to make sure that we do our part as coaches and the players have to do their part of executing it when that time comes.
Q. Do you think TE Dallas Goedert is getting enough targets, especially after Friday without WR A.J. Brown, and we don’t know what the situation is with him going forward, but do you think he’s as involved as he needs to be at this point? (Ed Kracz)
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, we’re in such a small sample size right now. We’d love to get Dallas the ball. Dallas has gotten the ball a lot. But different teams play things different ways, whether they junk up the middle, whether they give you things on the outside. Yeah, would we like Dallas to have the ball more? Absolutely, of course we would. But again, sometimes it’s not that simple, either. Because the quarterback goes — we can’t tell the quarterback just throw it to this guy. He’s got to read the defense. That’s why playing quarterback is the hardest position in the NFL, or in sports, in my opinion. They have to read the defense to see where the hit is coming or where the pressure is coming, where the coverage is, all those different things, and deliver the ball where it’s supposed to go.
So, it’s not always that simple.
Now, we can put Dallas at the No. 1 spot where we think it might go, but that doesn’t also necessarily mean that.
Do we need to get Dallas the ball more? Is that a conscious effort? Yeah, but sometimes it’s not that simple.
Q. You mentioned the plays/players aspect of it – (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: Players, then plays.
Q. When you have RB Saquon Barkley, a high-level player like that — you’ve told us in the past you yell at your coaches if they say, ‘Catch the ball.’ He’s trying to catch the ball, and he knows he should have caught the ball. How do you handle that in the moment when you’re trying to make corrections? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, when we get in here, we’re not going to say, ‘Catch the ball.’ We’re going to talk about hand placement, stuff like that. And that’s for a couple different things that happened as far as some catches, not just Saquon.
[To John McMullen] As far as in the moment, are you saying?
Q. Yeah, in the moment, you have an All-Pro level player who understands. He knows what he has to do. (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: At that point, it’s about moving on from that, and if you get another opportunity to make a play, we’ve got to do it. And I think that’s the ‘in the moment,’ and you give the quick coaching point of what you think should happen, and then you re-emphasize that when you get to the film room.
Q. What changes most when you don’t have WR A.J. Brown on the offense, and how difficult was it that it happened at the end of last week? (Bob Brookover)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, when you’re in this league long enough, you experience these things where it’s like, ‘Oh, shoot.’ Whether they get hurt later in the week of practice that limits them, or they get hurt in the game prior to. It’s like, he might go. So, this is all part of what you end up doing. So, it’s not new to us to put two game plans together. And I don’t want you to think it’s like, this game plan and that game plan. There are similarities, it’s just some different things.
But we’ve been used to doing that because this is a game where people have bumps and bruises throughout the way. This is just common practice for us. This is part of our weekly process, what are we going to do, boom.
Hopefully I answered your question on that part, but you had a second part of that question.
Q. What changes most for you guys? For example, you ran 26 plays or 28 plays, I think, on those last two drives. 16 of them were four yards or less. Do you lose that explosiveness – (Bob Brookover)
NICK SIRIANNI: Well, A.J. is a phenomenal player, so of course you lose some of the big play ability that he brings. But you try to move guys around, whether you’re running a different play or whether you’re running a different person in the play that A.J. would have run, those are all different things.
But yeah, anytime you lose a player like A.J. Brown, it’s going to affect you. But again, I thought the efficiency of the offense — now, it wasn’t as good as we needed to be in the red zone, but the guys that had to step up and make plays in the absence of A.J. did a good job.
Q. What concerns you most about the Saints’ offense, especially in light of the difficulties you guys have been having? (Martin Frank)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I think first, they have an explosive running back with [Saints RB Alvin] Kamara. They’ve got speed at wide receiver. [Saints QB] Derek Carr has seen and played a lot of football, and when he’s on, he’s on.
I’ve got a lot of — being in that Charger division when he was early on, I have a lot of respect for Derek Carr because I think he can play really good football. Obviously, he is playing very good football at this particular point. But they run the ball well, they’re explosive with the pass game, and they’re going to be a big-time challenge in a hostile environment.
Q. I know you spend Monday to Saturday preparing for these game managing decisions, but in real time, who’s in the booth providing you with the data? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I have a couple guys that I rely on, that we go through a lot of different things with. [Passing Game Coordinator/Associate Head Coach] Kevin Patullo is a big help for me because he sits in a lot of them. My job, also, is to prepare guys to be head coaches, as well, so just like [former Eagles Offensive Coordinator] Shane [Steichen] used to sit in with some of these meetings with me because he was calling the plays, and [former Eagles Offensive Coordinator] Brian [Johnson], Kellen does the same thing. [Former Eagles Defensive Coordinator Jonathan] Gannon used to sit in those with me.
You kind of go through it that way. So, Kellen, Kevin, and I’ve got some eyes upstairs that are really helpful that help me think through some things, as well.
Again, my game management sheet — you have that memorized, right. It’s something that you work on. You make the game management sheet. You compile that from all these different things. There are so many different pictures in your head as far as ‘Oh, this happened in that game in 2010,’ whatever it is. So, you have it memorized, but you also bounce it off some guys. But the reason I have to have it memorized is because sometimes — not every time — it’s ‘make the decision, make the decision, make the decision.’ It happens fast. That’s our job as coaches.
That’s why it’s so important that we put ourselves — I read [former 49ers Head Coach] Bill Walsh’s book, and he talks about this whole aspect of – and it was a great read this summer and I’ve showed it to our coaches. He talks about the whole aspect of when he talks about scripting plays. He talks about scripting them in the beginning, but then he goes into, he wasn’t ready in the game — he was with the Bengals, and they were playing the Raiders or something like that, and he wasn’t ready for a call. But then he put himself in all those scenarios, so he was ready for each individual call, because you do have to make it like that. There’s no time to be like — there’s no pause button. There’s no Zach Morris — remember Zach Morris, he used to pause it. There’s nothing like that that you can do. That’s why you have to have it memorized, and that’s why you have to put the work in, quite frankly, to do that.
Again, is every decision I make going to be successful? No. But every decision I make has been thought out. Is every decision I make going to be glorified? No, not even a little bit, because I know the other end of it. You’re going to fail on some, and you’re not going to be perfect on 4th down decisions as far as converting them.
But that is my job as the head coach, and that’s just something that comes with — that’s the price of doing business. It’s the business that we chose. However you want to say it. I’ll gladly take the criticisms because I know they’re coming.
Q. After two straight games where the run defense was an issue, at what point do you find yourself focusing more on that, where in the past you might have been more focused offensively? (Brooks Kubena)
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, obviously I trust those guys to do their job, and I’m still going to focus more of my attention that way, towards the offense, and also game management. But we talk through everything. At the end of the day, offense, defense, special teams, I’m the head coach, so I’m responsible for all of it. So, if the run game doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to look on defense, then I’m first and foremost responsible.
But it’s just going through our process like we normally do, so I’ll have the same process with the defense as normal. We’ll talk through things. I know this, that I trust the heck out of our defensive staff. Their track record is pretty darned good, and I trust our players.