Nick Sirianni

Q. I know you said you wanted the discipline actions regarding DT Jalen Carter to be private, but since we will all see the game on Sunday, I was wondering if you could share with us if you anticipated having him for the full amount of snaps or if discipline is going to impact his availability for the game. (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: I’m going to keep everything that I do with him private, regardless of if you see it on Sunday or not. Everything, every conversation, whether it’s a personal conversation, a disciplinary thing, all those things will always be handled privately. I just think that’s the way to go about doing team business and when you’re doing things with a football team.

Q. What did the tape show you about the play from CB Adoree’ Jackson on Thursday night? (Ed Kracz)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, we gave up the three scoring drives early on in the game, and it’s– this is the greatest team sport there is, so to say, ‘Hey, this happened because of this player,’ it’s not realistic in the game of football. I thought he had moments where he had good challenges and obviously he gave up a couple plays also. It’s never, ‘Hey, this happened because of this.’ Never in this game, never in this sport, but again, like everybody in that football game, you had some positives, you had some negatives. That’s every player in that game, that’s every coach in that game. That’s that game itself.

We had some positives, and we had some negatives, and the thing that you do is you go back to work. You’re constantly trying to get better. What you try to do every single week, especially early on in the season, is find ways to win, which I was proud of our football team to be able to do that, and then take those moments and try to get better from them because your goal is to be playing your best football by the end of the year. That’s for everybody.

We got back into the film room. We were happy obviously to get the win against a good opponent but also knowing that we had a lot to clean up, and that’s not just Adoree’, that’s everybody on this football team. Players and coaches.

Q. Offensively, what did you see from the film that they were doing that maybe kept the football from not going to WR A.J. Brown and WR DeVonta Smith as much? (John McMullen)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, a bunch of different things. There are so many things that dictate a play and where the ball goes. That could be coverage, that could be progression, that could be protection, that could be– there’s so many different things that dictate that. There’s no secret about it– we always want to get the ball to 6 and 11 and we’re always trying to, so we will do an even better job as coaches trying to make sure that happens. That obviously starts with me, but what I do think that we were on offense was very efficient. The ball was moving forward consistently. We didn’t have a lot of negative plays. I believe we had one sack, not a lot of penalties on offense, and the ball moved forward, and so we were efficient.

Now, do we have a ton of things to clean up? Yes. Do we always want to get the ball to A.J. and DeVonta? Yes, because we know our pass game goes as they go– [QB] Jalen [Hurts], [TE] Dallas [Goedert], [RB] Saquon [Barkley], A.J., DeVonta. But it was good to be able to see [WR] Jahan Dotson get some great attempts and opportunities that he took advantage of. All that does is build confidence in the group when Jahan is making the plays that he did and it forces the defense to have to cover the entire field.

I know you guys have asked a lot about the roles talk. This is something that we constantly talk about in the roles talk is, ‘Yeah, A.J., DeVonta, Dallas, the pass game runs through you, but there are going to be games like this where you might not get the touches that we want you to get and we know that you want to get because it can help us win the football game. In those moments, what are you doing to change the football game without the ball in your hands?’

On the touchdown run by Saquon, you get two great blocks by A.J. and DeVonta that allowed him to get to the third level of the defense. Obviously, did a great job blocking up front, great combination block by [G] Landon [Dickerson] and [T] Jordan [Mailata], and also [C] Cam [Jurgens] and [G/T] Tyler Steen on that play to set that thing off, but then we had great efforts by them downfield. I think one thing I obviously don’t tell you guys a lot, and I know you guys think, ‘I know you don’t tell us anything about what you say to the team,’ but there are some things I’ll share.

One thing I shared with the team is, we’re in a four-minute drill at the end of the game, and A.J. Brown has yet to touch the football, and we’re in second-and-14, I believe, and we throw a pass to him that sets us up for a third-and-three, and then we get to third-and-three. Jalen [Hurts] scrambles on third-and-three and then the game’s over, we get to take knees.

What about that mental toughness by A.J. Brown to go, ‘Okay, the ball hasn’t come to me in three quarters.’ That might be the first time that’s ever happened to him in his career as a football player because he’s such a good player and you’re always trying to find ways to do that. But he makes a play in a critical moment when his number was called. You look for moments like that to really show and preach the stuff that’s important to your core values and your culture. That was just a great example by one of our captains of, ‘Hey, it didn’t go exactly the way you wanted it to go, or any of us envisioned it going, that’s life, that’s football, but when called upon and the ball did come your way, you made this huge play.’ And was it a first down? No, but it set us up to get the first down where it Dallas’ offense didn’t come back on the field, and you set us up to get that and make this huge play when maybe the ball wasn’t going your way all night.

That’s why A.J.’s special because even in a game like that, he does things without the ball to help us win and he makes a play in a critical moment. Great throw by Jalen and great route and catch by A.J. and made a play in a critical moment to help us win the football game.

Q. Has QB Jalen Hurts’ decision-making as a scrambler, like when to break the pocket, when not to, improved during his career? If so, why do you think that has happened? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: I think he’s been pretty dynamic of that his entire career since I’ve been here, and even watching him as a college football player when we watched him coming out and then watching the 2020 tape when we first got here. I think that’s just been something that he’s been so good at. I think one thing he has is instincts. He’s got great instincts of when to move, how to move, how to slide out of the pocket and move this way or that way or step up and throw.

I think the best way to answer your question is I think he’s improved on all facets of his game, and he continuously does that, and he can’t help but do that because of his habits on a daily basis. He loves this game of football. He is constantly looking for ways to get better at this game of football. He’s constantly looking at ways to help this team win. To answer your question, yeah, he continues to get better at his scrambling, but in all phases of it. I do think that he’s always had this instinct and innate ability of feeling pressure, feeling space, and being able to run and make plays with his legs and extend plays with his legs and then make plays with his arm.

So yeah, I think that’s just one of the things he’s done really well throughout the course of his career consistently.

Q. What did you make of LB Jihaad Campbell’s debut? (Brooks Kubena)

Nick Sirianni: I thought he did some really good things. Obviously, like all of us, we all had plays that we want back and we all had plays where there were some good and there was some bad, and that’s the game of football. You try to fix those things and move on and try to repeat the things that you had success with. I thought he did some really nice things in the game. I think you saw his speed, his length, his range in coverage, and I think you saw some of his ability in the run game. And there’s things that he has to work on as well, like we all do.

Look forward to getting back out there with him on the practice field because I think this is a guy that’s just going to continue to get better the more he plays football. Another guy that loves this game, has great work ethic and great work habits, and excited about the direction that he can go in that we see, but it takes what it takes, and he is going to have to work at it every single day. And I love that about him, that he has that in his DNA, that he is going to want to do that and to continue to get better.

Q. After the game in the locker room, you were pretty fired up talking about special teams. I was wondering what it was about the performance in this particular game that got you so fired up. Also, you talked about how the guys always play hard for Special Teams Coordinator Michael Clay. What is it about Coach Clay that kind of gets them to play that hard? (Reuben Frank)

Nick Sirianni: I think that we had such a challenge in this game with [Cowboys WR KaVontae] Turpin. I think he’s a phenomenal returner, a dual threat returner. In all football, it takes everybody, but we knew we were going to have to get great contribution from [P] Braden [Mann] of where he placed the football. We knew we were going to have to get great contribution from [K] Jake [Elliott] of where he placed the football. Then, we would have to get all 10 guys– I really get fired up about block destruction and tackling. I know you guys think I’m an offensive guy, but those things right there like block destruction and tackling fire me up so much because you work so hard on that fundamental and it takes great physical toughness and all those things to get that done. We got those efforts from the guys. We got great block destruction, which we worked so hard on with the kickoff unit, and we knew there’d be more returns in this game, too, based off of the rule changes.

We put a big emphasis on that of guys standing up, watching, being excited about this play that we saw yesterday was a big play for a lot of teams, and we knew how good we had to be in coverage, and we have to continue to be good in the coverage. But I was really excited about the way we beat blocks and the way we tackled. You’re always looking for ways that you want your team to show their toughness and their physicality because that’s the game of football. I think we could see that through that.

I did appreciate– we talked about relentless effort all last week. That was such an emphasis that we wanted to make sure we put on tape. I thought you saw our guys play hard, whether it was a missed tackle by Q [CB Quinyon Mitchell] in the flat, and then our two rookies, [S] Drew [Mukuba] and Jihaad, sprinting to the football and making the tackle on Turpin there. Or Zack Baun chasing down [Cowboys RB] Miles Sanders on the long run that he had that ended up being a seven-point tackle.

I know Coach Clay really emphasized that as well, and special teams is a big part of your relentless effort. Some guys have a bigger role on offense, defense, some don’t, and that’s their time to shine in that opportunity. I know Coach Clay emphasized that effort as well, and I always want to be able to show those guys how important it is for the contributions of everybody and recognize those guys in those scenarios when you do have a big challenge like that with Turpin. I just thought our guys played really hard, really physical, really tough, and they got the job done and it started with where the ball was placed. So, just pumped about that.

Q. Over the weekend, you guys signed OLB Za’Darius Smith. I was kind of curious about what led to that. How concerned were you about the pass rush? Obviously, you didn’t have any sacks against the Cowboys. And also, OLB Azeez Ojulari being inactive. What was behind that? (Martin Frank)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, there’s so many things that play into who’s up, who’s down. Special teams has a big part of that, especially with the new rules of the game and the kickoff. [OLB] Patrick Johnson has done a really nice job in special teams his entire time here as an Eagle, and it was going to be important that he had that same game against a really good returner, which I believe he did. There’s always so many things that go into who’s up, who’s down for a game. It’s always a tough conversation when you tell a guy that he’s not going to be up for a game because they want to contribute and they want to play.

Azeez has done a lot of good things since he’s been here, and I’d have no doubt that he’s going to help us win football games moving forward. I don’t think it’s any secret that [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] and his staff are constantly doing everything they can do to help improve this football team. I love that about Howie. I love his tenacity of just always doing what he can, doing his job to help this football team get better. You’re so appreciative of that as a head football coach with the partnership that you have with the general manager. I can’t say how thankful I am that I’m coaching alongside there with the best GM in all sports and, in my opinion, the best owner with [Chairman/CEO] Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie. Always they’re trying to do whatever [they] can do to help the football team.

Excited about Za’Darius and what he can add. From watching his tape the last five years, really, as I see him or even more than that, and then what he did last year. Looking forward to that. I think he adds to a very deep room where we have a lot of confidence in all those guys. Now again, with that being said, sometimes it’s hard to go up with six or seven guys at that position to dress for a game. We had some choices to make and that’s the way we went this week. But, I really like the depth of that room, and Howie’s done a great job of putting that room together and [Defensive Ends/Outside Linebackers Coach Jeremiah] Wash [Washburn] does a great job of coaching that group. Coach Wash is a phenomenal football coach who’s always pressing those guys to get better. So, you get good talent in here and then you coach that talent hard and push them to get better. That’s a recipe for good things. I’m really excited about that room.

Q. In your experience, how big of an edge is it for a team who’s trying to get their ‘get back?’ The Chiefs will, I’m sure, to some degree on Sunday. What’s the best way from a messaging standpoint to try to combat it? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: You control the things that you can control, and you go about your process. I think there’s a lot of things that can distract you from just putting your head down and working every single day. I think if you let yourself get involved in too many things, then you’re not focused on what you need to do. We don’t think too much about that as far as that goes. We know we’re playing a really good opponent, with a really good head coach, and a really good quarterback.

[Kansas City Chiefs Head Coach] Andy [Reid] is one of the best coaches– Coach Reid, pardon me, is one of the best coaches ever to coach this game. I know they’re doing the things that they need to do to be ready, and we need to do the same thing. It’s about our habits; it’s about our focus. I think you get caught up in that too much. Some of that stuff kind of fizzles out early on. I love that saying as preparation, but as the pressure gets higher, you don’t rise to the occasion. You fall back to your habits and your training.

I think that’s the same thing here. As that game goes on, maybe there’ll be some emotions early on, but it’s always going to come back down to that. I know that’s boring, and I know I say stuff like that a lot, but I do truly believe it that it’s about your weekly, daily, and yearly habits to get yourself ready for these types. This is our next game, so it’s our biggest game, and it’s the same thing for the Chiefs. We know how good of an opponent they are, and we know we’ve got to play a really good football game to be able to win that football game.

You love challenges like this because when you play against some of the other best teams in the NFL, that makes you better as well. We’re excited about the opportunity; we’re excited about the challenge. We know we’re going to have to do a lot of things better than we did last week to put ourselves in position to help us win this football game. That starts this week in practice and meetings.

Q. Going back to the offseason, what consideration did you give to making DB Cooper DeJean a full-time outside cornerback, and what has kept you guys from doing that so far? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, Coop can do a lot of different things. He can return kicks, he can return punts, he can play inside corner, he can play outside corner, he has ability to play safety. I’m sure he’d be pretty good on offense if we said, ‘Hey, we want you to put you on offense.’ You just make the decisions of where you think he is best, and you go from there. He has flexibility as we know.

I think right now, he’s one of the best nickels in the NFL with the way he plays these football games with his physicality, with his ability to match routes, with his ability to use his mind and think of how routes are coming at him. I just think he can do a lot of things there. Again, flexibility, to be able to move him around. We’ll see what we do with that but I do believe that he is one of the better players at his position in the NFL and so we’ll just keep repping him at different things and continuing to rep him at nickel and prepare him at that position.

Q. There was one stat out there that had stacked box versus RB Saquon Barkley two thirds of the time, three times what it was last season, yet you only threw over 10 yards once. Why was that? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: Every game is a little bit different. I don’t think you ever go into a game thinking, ‘Hey, we’re not going to throw it down the field.’ It’s important that you throw it down the field. We talk about explosive plays all the time and being able to generate explosive plays. The Cowboys generated more explosive plays than us, because we talk about that a lot, and we talk about the turnover battle a lot. They committed one more turnover than us, and it’s important that you win those battles.

But every game has different things of why the ball doesn’t go there whether that’s us calling it, whether that’s the way the defense took it away, whether that’s whatever it may be. One thing that we have the ability to be able to do here to generate explosive plays is we have good players with the ball in their hands. You can get it to them a variety of different ways. Sometimes you want to throw it over the top, sometimes you want to throw it in an intermediate range.

What I love about our team is that we have the ability to throw it short and for guys to get explosives that way. You want to mix all those things each week. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that happens each week. You want to get A.J. Brown the ball each week. It didn’t necessarily happen this last week. Things happen in a game, and all you’re ever trying to do in the midst of the game is do everything you can do to help win the football game and then try to get better from that. You’re thankful that you get out with a win, and we’ve got a lot of things to work on to get better at.