Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni (Post-Game Transcript)

How do you think QB Tanner McKee played?

Nick Sirianni: Played pretty good.

 

A little bit more as far as what he did well?

 Nick Sirianni: He played good. No, he did a lot of good things. Went to the right place with the football, was accurate. Had really good operation, him and [Offensive Coordinator] Kevin [Patullo], a lot of communication. And [Quarterbacks Coach] Scot [Loeffler]. Yeah, he did a really nice job.

 

Earlier you mentioned that you felt like what WR Johnny Wilson did last year was a bit underrated, him getting his catches out there. How do you feel like he showed what he’s getting?

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, he had a really nice day today, too. It’s easy to look at stats for a wide receiver and say, ‘This guy did this and this guy did that,’ but he did a lot. Johnny did a lot of things for us and continues to do a lot of things for us in our rush offense last year that was number one with some of the blocks that he had, and he was really good on special teams.

It takes guys time to develop into pass catchers against the different coverages that he’s seen in the NFL. I think he did a really nice job adjusting to the football, making some really nice plays. Tanner put the ball on him. I thought the one that he had adjusted to on the back shoulder where he kind of turned and caught it was really good. Did a good job with his fundamentals, getting to his back so the ball didn’t pop out. We saw the ball pop out with [LB] Jihaad [Campbell] on his interception opportunity, but Johnny did a good job of getting to his back. He did a lot of good things and he’s one of our really tough players. It was fun to see him get some production today with that.

 

What have you made from WR Darius Cooper’s progression over his camp this summer?

Nick Sirianni: I mentioned him the other day. I think he has a lot of good tools, catches the ball obviously really well. Those are some tough catches that he made today, particularly on some of those shallows. That fourth-down shallow was like a perfect ball by Tanner with some traffic. I think they were in two-man and he just made a really nice catch there. He’s continuing to get better, learning all the different spots that he needs to play. I think he’s got an opportunity to do some good things. Obviously, you saw that out there today.

 

 What has WR Ainias Smith proven?

Nick Sirianni: Again, this is one of the biggest transitions from college to pro is that receiver position. You get more contested catches now. It’s a lot tighter coverage, but I think we’ve always seen the explosive ability to change directions by Ainias. You saw it on the punt return there where he made the guy miss and went for a big gain. That’s all over his college tape and we get to see that in practice quite a bit. He did a good job. He’s scrappy and I think that you’re seeing a good competition for those back end of the rosters.

[WR] Jahan [Dotson] obviously did a really good job tonight. We wanted to get him a couple touches and let him go to work as the number one receiver, but then you’ve got a lot of good competition and competition brings out the best in guys, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that race kind of plays itself.

 

What can CB Kelee Ringo take away from going against Bengals WR Ja’Marr Chase and Bengals QB Joe Burrow and how you thought he did?

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, you evaluate everything. Kelee’s done a nice job in practice to date, and he’s made a lot of plays in practice. Those guys complete those outs on a lot of– I see them make a lot of those plays. Ja’Marr Chase is one of the better receivers in the NFL. We’ve got to make that tackle there in that situation and stop that play for a 16-yard gain instead of it going out there. But he’s done a lot of good things. We evaluate everything. It’s not just a one game deal and I have no doubt that he’ll look at the tape, we’ll look at the tape and he’ll get better from that.

 

The first half tonight and Week 18 last year, with the other teams playing their starters, does your performance resonate more with the backups and QB Tanner McKee?

Nick Sirianni: Are you talking offensively there? I mean that was a team that, what? They went, nine-and-eight last year? We know how good of a football team they are. It was good to get out there and get some reps there. I think the offensive line seemed like it. I’ll have to look at the tape there. But they did a good job. Tanner obviously did a good job. Receivers. I thought our backs played well. I thought you saw some good things from our tight ends as a whole. [TE Kylen] Granson made some big time catches, [TE] EJ [Jenkins] made some big time catches. I was pleased with how they performed.

I thought it was a clean football game. I told the guys before the game, in these scenarios, you want to play a clean football game with your fundamentals. You want to play a clean football game with your assignments, knowing what to do. You want to play a clean football game with situational football, which a couple of situations that popped up, we really handled the two-minute well at the end of the half. And then you just want to see the guys play with relentless effort and I saw that. I saw that tonight from the first quarter on. And so, there’ll obviously be a lot of things that we need to clean up and that’s the best part about practicing games like that. You get to clean those things up and get better from it.

 

How about the staff and the operation from your perspective and the assistants? I imagine this is a big test for you guys.

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, again, we put ourselves in those positions in practice just like we try to put players in positions in practice to make it as game-like as possible. So we’re doing a lot of that. I need a lot of practice with that, getting back into that, communicating with Kevin, [Defensive Coordinator] Vic [Fangio] and [Special Teams Coordinator Michael] Clay there. So we’ve practiced a lot of that. So it was just another opportunity for us to do that in a game setting with the officials there, the play clock, all those different things that we practice.

But I thought it was really good. It was good communication on the sideline. No pre-snap penalties. The ones that we like to say, ‘The ones that take no talent,’ I felt like we didn’t have any of those today and we’ve cleaned some of those up from camp. So it was a good operation. We did some things situationally different, not showing some things, but there was constant communication.

It’s great to have [QB] Jalen [Hurts] on the headset to be like, ‘Hey, Jalen on this one. We’ll be thinking this with this scenario.’ But Kevin and I have worked so much together. Kevin knows when we’re in a situation, ‘Hey Nick, what are you thinking here?’ So that felt like– Kevin and I have been doing that together for the last five years and even going back to Indy. So that seemed very, very clean to me. Not only my communication with Kevin, but Kevin’s communication back to me. ‘What are you thinking here? What are we going for on this?’ And so I was really pleased with how that went tonight.

 

You mentioned LB Jihaad Campbell and the near interception. Where do you feel like he is right now, both with his fundamentals and then also his understanding of the scheme and his responsibilities?

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, he’s growing and he’s doing a good job. Obviously, he’s highly athletic and can do a lot of different things and I see him getting better every day. Yeah, we had a couple interceptions that– [OLB] Pat Johnson obviously made the big time interception right there, but we felt like Trott [LB Jeremiah Trotter Jr.] had an opportunity for an interception. We felt like [CB] Eli [Ricks] had an opportunity for an interception. We felt like Jihaad had an opportunity for an interception. We’ve got to make sure we finish those. We had a couple drops on offense as well that stalled out some drives, so we want to clean up some of those things with the entire team.

 

RB AJ Dillon had his first live action in a while, what stood out about this performance?

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, I think you just, again, we’ve seen that in practice a lot. Just his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield and also just get downhill on runs. And I think we saw that tonight, he’s a powerful runner and I really love that running back room. [Running Backs Coach/Assistant Head Coach] Jemal [Singleton]’s done a great job with them. [RB] Saquon [Barkley]’s a great leader, [RB] Will [Shipley] had a nice game. AJ had a nice game, so I’m really pleased with that running back room and how they’re progressing there. And even the young guys did a good job tonight as well.