Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni (Post-Game Transcript)
Overall thoughts on the game? (Tim McManus)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, there’s a lot that I’m going to have to watch to be able to process everything, and obviously at the end of the day, had the lead in the fourth quarter and they made more plays and coached better than us and played better than us, and they came back and got a win.
Why’d you get away from the run in the second half? (Jeff McLane)
Nick Sirianni: We’ll have to go back and watch a lot of this stuff. There were a couple scenarios right there where we got a little bit behind the sticks. I know the plays, whether it was a hold or a false start, got behind the sticks there. Those are some self-inflicted things that we did. When those happen, I’m always putting that on myself. When we don’t master the things that require no talent, that’s something that’s always going to be on me because that’s something that we talk about an awful lot, and we have to drive that home and I have to drive that home, so that’s on me.
Do you notice a difference this year in how long it’s taking the play call to get to QB Jalen Hurts versus other years? I know Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo is a new coordinator. Did you notice a difference there? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)
Nick Sirianni: No. No. Again, there’s so many things that go into that. Obviously, we had the one that was a huge one on fourth down where we got up and kind of snapped it on one. A lot of things that go into that. Again, we’re doing everything we can do to find solutions, not assign blame, and we’re a team. We’re together, so it’s always going to be an us thing.
There were two mistakes that happened on offense throughout the game, where do you think those originate from in terms of just some of the fundamental play? (Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Which ones?
Either the breakdown on the shot play or the penalties or some of the– (Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, again, anytime we have penalties or something like that, that’s something that you can control. Again, there’s things that happen in the heat of the game that are going to happen, but if there’s stuff like pre-snap, post- stuff, I’m always going to take accountability for that.
If I could follow up on that, two first downs were taken off the board because of penalties. Then they had a drive extended because of a penalty. What was your perspective on those calls and also why were those issues in critical situations? (Zach Berman)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, obviously, I’ve been around this long enough where calls, they balance each other out. I know sometimes there’s always going to be like, ‘Well, we get screwed in this one.’ I don’t think that way. They all balance each other out. You’re going to get some that you think you should get, you’re going to get some that’s going to go against you sometimes as well, so those guys do the best they can do and take a lot of pride in that. I got a lot of respect for the referees and we’ll never put anything on that. Again, those things happen in split second situations. And then the review, same thing, so a lot of respect for what they have to do in real time. It’s tough. You just don’t want to put yourself in those situations where it’s coming down to a decision made by somebody else.
What was your perspective on the missed opportunity on the deep shot from QB Jalen Hurts to WR A.J. Brown? (Jimmy Kempski)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, I’m going to have to go back and look at that. I thought they got a good reroute in on that on A.J. within the slot right there. Guys made a lot of plays today, credit to their defense, but I need to look at that play before I am able to answer that question.
This is obviously the first time you guys as this collection have [lost] come off winning a Super Bowl, have you found anything different in terms of your preparation, what you need to do, the attrition of that experience last year playing into what’s kind of been going on with some of the sloppiness this year? (Mike Sielski)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, no, I think that the guys have worked extremely hard in preparation. I see the same hunger that was there prior to us winning the Super Bowl, so I don’t think it’s anything like that. Again, just the name of this game is always going to come down to detail, and as far as us as coaches and players, we weren’t detailed enough today and they were a little more detailed than us and it’s a good football team. Hats off to them. [Broncos Head] Coach [Sean] Payton’s obviously a really good coach, and a lot of respect for that opponent.
You did hit on some of the deep shots in this going into this game. Why did you think that would be open and available to you? (Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Obviously, as the game goes you see different things that come up. We’ve talked about being more explosive in the run and the pass game and obviously I’d have to look at what the stats were. We didn’t make enough plays and we didn’t coach good enough today, so I don’t know.
Nick, you had QB Jalen Hurts on 38 pass attempts and RB Saquon Barkley on six runs. I know you were behind the stake and throwing maybe a little bit more. That’s a pretty wide disparity. Is that an indication maybe the offense is a little out of balance today? (Ed Kracz)
Nick Sirianni: Just like when we talk about getting [WR] A.J. [Brown] the ball, or [WR] DeVonta [Smith] the ball or Saquon the ball, we all want to get them all the ball as much as we possibly can. [TE] Dallas [Goedert] as well. Obviously, we want to run the ball more than we were able to today, or pardon me, what we did today. You always want to come out of that game with Saquon getting enough touches for the type of player he is. So again, we’ll look for solutions, and we’re on a short week trying to get better to put ourselves in position to go play against another NFC opponent.
Do you feel like you can rely on your run game to close out games like last year? (Jeff McLane)
Nick Sirianni: I do, I do. I still think, I still believe so much in the guys that we have up front and who we have in the backfield. Yeah, I do.
You mentioned the details, obviously details is something you stress, you bring it up all the time. Do you see a common theme as to why the details aren’t as sharp as they have been in past years? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)
Nick Sirianni: Details are kind of a wide range of things. When we talk about details, we talk about our fundamentals and obviously there’s so many different fundamentals that go into it. Taking care like we took care of the football today. We didn’t create a turnover though, right? I will have to look at how the blocks were. The block destruction, I’ll have to look at. Then, it goes down to being on the same page. I think your guys are talking about the same page because they know that’s a big part of the details. I didn’t feel like there were major busts today, and then at situational football. So again, we’ll have to look at all those things. Same page too as some of those pre-snap penalties, that goes into that as well in detail. There’s a collection of different things, but again, it always comes down to the team making the fewer mistakes usually is the team that’s the victor.
Of those quick three-and-outs offensively left your defense on the field quite a bit. Does that factor into any of the decision making offensively, or should it? (Dave Zangaro)
Nick Sirianni: As far as?
As far as play calls just to try to sustain drives? (Dave Zangaro)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, I think that plays into my area of going for it more on a fourth down. We went forward on that fourth and four right there. Obviously had what happened happened. But yeah, I mean you always want to be on the attack as an offense, and there are different circumstances though that play into it with some of the three and outs. I think we had a couple penalties that put us behind, and then again, just some of those, didn’t coach well enough, didn’t execute well enough.
Some of these things you have to correct in the short week. How difficult is that? QB Jalen Hurts said basically you have to look inward. Is this more of a sort of a DNA week for lack of a better term? (John McMullen)
Nick Sirianni: This week, there’s keys to games that you have on all the different games that you play in this league as far as different types of games.I’m not talking about opponents, I’m talking about short weeks, bye weeks, coming off bye week, first game of the year, rain game, snow game, wind game, whatever it may be. So, there’s always the key to a unique week like this week.
On the illegal shift, what is the explanation to that? (Zach Berman)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, I guess you didn’t get a big explanation. But apparently, we weren’t set, and [RB] Saquon [Barkley] started the motion before we were set, so that’s on us. We want to get up and get set as quick as we possibly can, so then you can go through all the different things that you need to go through at the line of scrimmage to help you execute the play. So that’s something where we can’t make that mistake. That’s a mistake that’ll get you, and it obviously got us today.