Nick Sirianni

Q. Hey Nick, first off, how are you feeling and how did everything go down with the process of getting tested? And what’s the plan for the rest of the week without you potentially being there? (Dave Zangaro)

NICK SIRIANNI: Wasn’t feeling great this morning when I woke up and just got tested and obviously, we are where we are right now. I’m feeling okay, I’m feeling a little bit better now, which is good.

And then the rest of the week, I’ll be in every meeting, obviously, virtually as if – every single meeting, every quarterback meeting, every offensive meeting, every team meeting, I’ll be running those.

Yeah, just business as usual.

Q. Who runs practice? (Dave Zangaro)

NICK SIRIANNI: Well, practice runs itself really to be 100% honest with you. You blow the horn, go period to period. I’m not a big talker, to be honest with you. After, I talk to them a lot in team meetings. I talk to our guys a lot in team meetings.

Breakdowns normally go, ‘Hey’ – I may say one thing, but normally I’m like, ‘Hey, [T] Lane [Johnson], break us down.’ So, players will break us down as normal.

So, business as usual.

Q. If you were not able to coach on Sunday, are you willing to tell us who would be the coach or you want to keep that close to the vest? (Bo Wulf)

NICK SIRIANNI: [Eagles Passing Game Coordinator] Kevin Patullo will do all the, whether we’re going for it on fourth down, different situations like that, the coin toss, this and that.

The reason that I went with Kevin there – [Eagles Running backs/Assistant Head Coach] Jemal Singleton will help with things as well, but the reason Kevin will be in charge is because Kevin doesn’t have a position to coach. Kevin helps with a lot of different aspects throughout the game. I want there to be as little change as possible. I don’t want Jemal to have to think about that while he’s coaching a position.

So, Kevin is involved in all those conversations of coin toss and going for it on fourth down, as it is anyway. So, it’s just a natural transition there for Kevin to be able to do that.

Q. With this five-day turnaround, is there any concern for just the timetable of the turnaround of you being able to be cleared? (Mike Kaye)

NICK SIRIANNI: We’ll just see what the numbers say and hopefully I’ll be ready to go on Sunday. If not, we’ve prepared for this. I’m very confident in what we did, as far as getting ahead of everything last week and the last couple weeks of being separated, putting ourselves almost in protocol as it was, just with the extra precautions we took.

And so, yeah, we’ll see what the numbers say, but if I’m not going to be there on gameday– like I said, everything up until gameday will be very normal, except I’m not in the building, but I’ll be running everything the same way because I’m the head coach.

But as far as Sunday goes, we’ll play that by ear and see what happens.

Q. What was the reaction when you found out you tested positive? (Jeff McLane)

NICK SIRIANNI: I guess the first thing was let me get away from everybody. Let’s make sure my family is good. Pretty much that’s it.

And then basically is how I get all my stuff at the hotel where I’m staying to make sure I have everything I need to get ready for this game. Before I thought about anything else, about like what I’m going to eat or anything like that, I wanted to make sure I had my computer in here and my film to make sure I could watch and prepare for this game.

Q. How is the rest of your staff at this point? And how much work were you guys able to do in game planning and preparing in the days before yesterday’s game? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: We got a big portion of it done, which is good. Obviously, we came in here thinking, ‘Hey, today is going to be – it’s Wednesday, so we got to be caught up to where we would on Wednesday.’ I’m confident that we are.

Now, it’s the rest of the game planning from Wednesday on. Rest of the staff is good. I’ll get more information from our medical staff here within the next couple hours of where everybody is as far as that goes.

But we’re in a good spot right now where we normally are on Wednesday. And where we normally are on Wednesday, you got a big portion of the game plan done, and that’s where we are right now.

Q. Hey, Nick, hope you’re feeling better soon. What can you kind of tell us about Kevin Patullo? I remember when you got the job you mentioned how much you were putting on Kevin’s shoulders, and it was evident pretty quickly that you guys were close. What about him makes you think he can handle this if you’re not able to go on Sunday? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: A lot of things during the game is being able to — you know, the decision making as far as — and obviously [Eagles offensive coordinator] Shane [Steichen] and I have been calling the game together the entire year, right?

For whatever reason I get credit for the — or the other way around when it doesn’t go well, for the play calling. But Shane and I have been calling it together the entire year. Shane has done a great job there.

As far as Kevin goes, like I said, the decisions that are being made there are the fourth-down decisions, it was a big chunk of them. Obviously, the pre-game stuff as far as receiving, kicking and receiving, which way you want to defend, all those things happen with the communication with everybody.

So, Kevin has a great relationship obviously with [Eagles defensive coordinator] Jonathan [Gannon] as well, so he’ll be able to communicate that back and forth. It’s just Kevin being the person that he is and having that relationship with everybody on our staff.

Q. You had a real short week earlier in the year and ended up not playing a very good game against Tampa. What did you learn from that, and how are you going to approach this week in terms of balancing physical readiness with the fact that everybody just played Tuesday night? (Les Bowen)

NICK SIRIANNI: We actually have an extra day, and so that — when you play Thursday night, obviously we had one less day getting ready for Tampa. Again, we didn’t play good enough in Tampa. Didn’t coach good enough against Tampa, so those were some of the contributors to us not winning that football game.

We have that extra day to get ready. In any type of schedule, you always are looking at what can we do to get better from this.

We made tweaks after the Tampa game, maybe this period should be a little bit longer, maybe this third down should go this day and this and that. So, we made those adjustments like we would with everything else that we thought would be better.

And then like I said, with this game you get one extra day, and so we’re deciding periods that we have are full speed, seeing how the guys feel. Friday might be a full — there might be some full speed things. Again, want to see how everybody feels as we get together with the medical staff.

Just making those tweaks just to make sure we’re better, like we do in everything. Hey, how do we run this play better? And you go into the same things like maybe we should do this with this play, and it’s the same thing with scheduling.

Q. Hope you get through this quickly. If I could just clarify, are you saying Kevin Patullo would call plays Sunday if you’re not back or would Shane Steichen do it? (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Shane would.

Q. Shane would. Part two of that is when you say that you and Shane have both been calling plays, how do two people call plays? Were you alternating drives or quarters? (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: No, not alternating it, we’re just calling it together. Shane is the one calling it in to the quarterback. We’re talk about the series of plays before each go around. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re going to run this, this, this, this, and this on this one,’ and we know the flow of what we’re going to do. Shane calls it in, but we discuss what that flow will be before each one, and then Shane rolls with that series of five plays and then I’ll say — I mean, it can be different each series I guess is what I’m saying.

Sometimes Shane is going to roll with those five or six players that we talked about, and sometimes Shane is a going to call it in the order we talked about, and then I’m going to tell him, ‘No, I want this here.’

So, we’re doing everything together. We talk about the third downs beforehand, and that’s kind of cemented in before the drive starts. Hey, this our next third and two to three, this is our next four to six, et cetera, next red zone call, each section of the red zone. Next time we’re going to do — whatever it is. So, we’re just calling it together based off the collaboration, and like I said, I think he’s done a great job.

Q. Speaking of COVID, obviously you guys had OL Landon Dickerson and T Andre Dillard test positive this week, both offensive linemen. Now you have it. How worried are you about a possible outbreak? And if there is one, would you lobby the NFL to maybe push your game back against the Giants a day or so? (Martin Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Well, like I said, we took a lot of precautions as far as the last couple weeks of just taking more precautions knowing the pandemic was getting more and more, I don’t want to say serious because it’s always been serious. Just the spread was more rapid or however you want to say it.

So, we’ve taken more precautions the last couple weeks. That doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have an outbreak. I’m not going to play a hypothetical there. I feel like we’ve done the right things and we’ll play it by ear if that does happen.

Again, the NFL has done a good job of putting the protocols in place and all that, and so it’s not my job to lobby for anything. They’re going to do what they think is best for the players and what they think is best for the coaches and they’re going to do what they think is best for the league.

We’ll trust that and play when they tell us to play.

Q. Last night were you feeling any issues last night? I did notice that when you shook hands with Washington Head Coach Ron Rivera, I believe you put on a mask or wanted to make sure you were covered. How important is it to look out for one another when we’re going through this as a team and league? (John Clark)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I felt fine last night. Again, Ron was wearing a mask there. We were wearing masks inside and I wanted to — obviously with Coach Rivera wearing a mask I wanted to wear a mask as well. I kind of covered myself up like this [covering face with sweatshirt]. When I went in there, I kind of put my face under there.

I felt fine last night. But we were, inside we were wearing masks like we were, and so, again, wanted to do that when I shook people’s hands as well.