Nick Sirianni

Q. QB Jalen Hurts said after the game in that final offensive drive, especially once you guys had it to first-and-10 with 25 seconds to go, that he honors the play call that comes in. I was wondering, from a coach’s perspective, how you coach the quarterback to honor the play call versus maybe do what he thinks is best in that instance at the end of game? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: Jalen’s playing. We’re coaching and calling the plays, and Jalen’s got to go execute what we call in that moment, 100%. We’re not asking him to make play calls in that scenario. He’s already got enough to worry about to go out and execute. That’s where we were there in that situation.

Q. To kind of further that, with the offense as a whole, obviously a lot of adversity. T Lane Johnson, the trade, some injuries. How do you sort of gauge how Offensive Coordinator Sean Mannion’s progressing as this thing moves forward? (John McMullen)

Nick Sirianni: I think that right now, offensively, we all have to be better. Players, coaches, myself — all of us have to be better. We’re not worried about gauging where this person is or where that person is. We’re worried about growth, and we’re worried about how we — because obviously it hasn’t been good enough. We’re worried about growth. We’re worried about what we do well, what we don’t do well, how we maximize those things that we’re doing well, how we try to eliminate some of the things that we’re not doing well, whether that’s you take things out of your playbook or whether that’s something that is completely fixable that you continue to work on.

That is where we are right now and what we are doing right now as a staff. Obviously, today is about reflecting on what happened yesterday, and today is about the growth of that. Later in the day, it will be a little bit more on our next game, what we want to do, how we’re going to do it, what we do well, what this opponent’s doing. That’s kind of how this day will go.

Q. Obviously, the last three weeks have been tough losses, not just losing, but the way some of these games have gone. How do you keep an eye on the psyche of the team and make sure that it doesn’t spiral and that the guys stay up and stay positive? (Reuben Frank)

Nick Sirianni: That’s where relationships come into play. You’re constantly communicating with the guys through messages with the team in a team setting but also checking in with guys as much as you possibly can throughout the week. Today, I’ll be doing that. Quite frankly, every day. That’s what you’re doing at this particular point. It is very early on in the season. Right now, we are what our record says we are. We’re 2-3, and we know there’s a lot left in the season. I don’t think that there is any panic on any aspect of any player or coach in this building. We’ve had three-game losing streaks before — last year — and our job is to get up and keep fighting.

Q. After reviewing the sequence of plays before K Jake Elliott’s kick and then the ensuing kickoff, what are your takeaways? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: Leading up to Jake’s kick, we practice that situation every Wednesday. Every single Wednesday, we practice what we call two-minute to four-minute. It’s a little more complicated than I think people understand. My opinion is that people stop trying — you get to around the 35, you’re in range, and people stop trying to advance the ball forward. When you advance the ball forward, you make the kicker’s job easier. We are all trying to do our part to help each other be at their best. You guys can look up the percentages when the ball gets in certain spots on the field leaguewide.

Because if you don’t make the kick, nothing else really matters. So, in that situation, you’re trying to move the ball forward. Running it is an option, obviously, but with what Jacksonville was doing in that particular case, it wasn’t going to be an option. You saw what happened when we ran it on the third down. I never think that it’s something that you can say, ‘OK, I’m going to wait till third down to pass the ball.’ You have no idea how many times it’s going to take you to advance the ball a little bit more forward.

We didn’t get any yards and got an incomplete pass on the first play. We gained yards on the second play, and then on the third play, we ran it and lost yards there against a full-out pressure. You have to gauge what the defense is doing — I end up watching those situations each week and any two-minute to four-minute from a — Not only do we practice it, I’ll study those situations throughout the week, whatever I deem kind of came up that way in pro football. In my opinion, I think you see a lot of times teams take their foot off the gas there. Now, you’d love for the last play of the game to be your kick, but you’d also say, ‘Hey, if I can get that clock under 20 seconds, you’re accomplishing that as well.’ Leading into that last play, I said what I said yesterday. I stand by that. I did not make the decision that I wanted to make there in that particular case, and it cost us. There’s nothing else to be said about that.

But leading up to Jake’s kick, to answer your question, that’s my thought process there, to bring you inside that a little bit without giving too much information. That’s my thought process in that situation. I stand by what I did in that situation, had eight seconds left to go in the game once we gave the ball back to them, and that’s where my decision is that I regret what I did then after that. But to give them back the ball with eight seconds left, I think we did what we needed to do as an offense, and you obviously saw the success of Jake’s kick in that particular case.

Q. Hey Nick, kind of building off of John McMullen’s question, obviously, you and the team never make excuses about injuries, but you’ve had a lot of them on offense. It’s got to be difficult for a guy like Offensive Coordinator Sean Mannion, who seems very confident, knowledgeable, talented, and not intimidated by big moments. But for him to install a new offense while, honestly, half your top offensive players are out, can you just talk about that a little bit? And in general, like I said, people on the outside may kind of overlook that fact, but can you just candidly say what’s going on with the offense right now? (Christiaan DeFranco)

Nick Sirianni: Like I said, it’s never just one thing. There’re always multiple things when it’s not going the right way and not the way you want it to go. It’s very rare in this game of football that it’s just one thing, right? Obviously, that’s not true. We all have things that we have to get better at. We all have things that we’re looking to grow upon each and every week. You’re right, we won’t ever use anything as an excuse because we’re in similar situations as other teams are, and our job is to figure it out. In a world where I think that we look to assign blame, look for excuses, it’s not about that. It’s about finding solutions. I’ll always live that way and do my best to find the solutions to give our team the best chance that we can to win each and every week.

I want my players thinking that way, and it’s never going to be about who’s in, who’s out, what this — We’ve got to find solutions. That’s our job, plain and simple, period. What I said to the guys [is that] you have to be different to give yourself an edge. What I mean by that [is] you have to condition differently than other teams to give yourself an edge. You have to work on tackling differently than other teams to give yourself an edge. You have to take accountability and not look to assign blame and look yourself in the mirror first to help yourself get as good as you possibly can without looking for an excuse to give yourself an edge. To do things in the NFL and to win games in the NFL, you have to be different than everybody else. That’s what our goal is each and every week, each and every time is an opportunity to get better. We’ve done that here, but we have to get better at that right now and get better in general.

Q. Using WR Makai Lemon’s late catch, where he got out of bounds and stopped the clock where it might’ve been advantageous for you guys to run more clock there and have him stay in bounds. As a head coach, how do you balance giving guys freedom to play the way they need to play and trusting them as professionals to do the right thing in those situations, but also, as you’ve said, taking responsibility for everything that goes on the field. I guess in a situation like you guys are in now where you have a lot of young guys, guys who are playing because other guys are injured, do you and your staff have to drill down more on certain things? Do you feel the need to do that because of where you guys are at? (Mike Sielski)

Nick Sirianni: It’s a good question, but I think if you’re saying, ‘Hey, we got these new guys in, and we’ve got to be even more detailed,’ then I didn’t do my job as good as I possibly could do it prior to that, if I’m answering your question. The parity in this league is so tight. We don’t go play a cupcake game to get ready for another game. That doesn’t happen in the NFL. How do I say this? I think every day, every situation and everything that we do is fourth-and-one. I really do believe that. We’ve got to do that on a daily basis.

In that particular case, us getting a new set of downs on a first down is a good thing. It would run the time down to be the last play, and the guy pushes him out on the route that we ran to get the ball out of our hands quickly in a Blitz Zero situation. The guy pushes him out of bounds in that situation, but he got himself closer to the first down there. Like I said, it didn’t work out. We gave them the ball back with eight seconds, and ideally in those situations, you want to try to give it to them back with no time. You ideally want it to be the last play of the game. But to get it down to eight seconds, I thought the offense did what they were supposed to do. As I’ve explained to you guys, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do after that. I do believe the offense did everything they could do. Would we love for the kick to be the last situation? Obviously. It wasn’t in this particular case, but we got it under 10 seconds. That, to me, is not why we lost that game.

Q. As far as the injuries, are you expecting some offensive reinforcements with WR DeVonta Smith and RB Saquon Barkley? And if you can look at the running back spot in particular, you’re obviously down — or in that game, were down your top three guys going into the season, where is that position going into Sunday? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, we’ll see. I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. I don’t get too much into all those things. I just think it’s hard to tell you one thing and then it plays out differently because there’s still a lot of time left for this game. But I’m hopeful that these — I know how hard these guys work to get themselves back because it’s killing them that they’re not out there. I really felt strong about our running back room going into the season. Obviously, we’ve been without Saquon. We lost [RB] Will [Shipley] during that game. We lost [RB] Tank [Bigsby]. Those are three really good players, but I think everyone knows who [RB] Dameon Pierce is and the things that he can do and had some nice runs in that game. Had some really, really, really nice pass protections in that game to help us get the ball out a couple times. I thought that was really encouraging and awesome because he’s a tough guy and will stick his face in there.

Then [RB] Carson [Steele], you saw him in the preseason of what kind of got him onto this team and the things that he can do. I’ve always been pleased with that group. [RB] Jaydon Blue [has] worked really hard. He brings a completely different dynamic, but we’ll see where we are at the end of the week. But, man, at that position, sometimes it rains, it pours, and a string of injuries hits you at a certain position.

But [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] did a great job of bringing in a lot of good pieces to this team. Shoot, I know we had [former Eagles RB] Elijah Mitchell earlier, too. I was really pleased with how he was looking as well. That was always a strength, and we’re needing that right now. I’m excited that we have those guys here to step in when they need to.