Nick Sirianni

Q. Any decision on what you’re going to do this Sunday with the starters and with RB Saquon Barkley? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, we’re going to rest some guys. We’re locked into that No. 2 seed, so we’re going to rest some guys. There are going to be some guys that are resting. There are going to be some guys that are in reserve roles. You can’t obviously rest everybody with the roster.

Yeah, that’s our plan moving in here forward.

Q. Is RB Saquon Barkley going to be one of them? (Martin Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he’ll probably be somebody that rests.

Q. How valuable will that be for those guys? The bye was early this year. They’ve been playing 12 straight weeks. (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, that definitely played into all the decisions here. Our bye week being Week 5, very early bye week, so it’s very valuable to be able to be in this position to do that.

This isn’t our first time having to do this. We’ve had experience with this. A lot of that went into planning all these things.

We want to use this week to continue to get better, whether we’re playing in the game, whether we’re not playing in the game, whether we’re playing in a reserve role, whether we have a big opportunity ahead of us.

We want to use this week to get better because of our goals moving forward.

Q. There were some coaches that publicly said they find it difficult to tell players that they’ll be playing versus other ones. What is your response to that? How did you tell the players, so that the ones that are playing don’t feel like they’re… (Jeff McLane)

NICK SIRIANNI: You just try to have a communication with all the guys. That communication can look different whether you call, whether you text, whether it’s a position coach, whether it’s myself. So you just go through that.

But we have a very selfless team. I will say that. Like I’ve told you guys, we have videos after their game about some of the things they’ve said in the media promoting team, the celebrations that they have together.

Just listening to that last game, I think [T] Lane [Johnson] said something really cool. He said something along these lines: the relationships that we have with each other make us not want to let each other down and this and that.

I thought that was cool. Our guys that are not playing in the game will use this as an opportunity to, again, rest their bodies and to help their teammates get better. The guys that are playing, again, some of them will be in a reserve role. Some will play more than they have in the past; some of them will play less than they have in the past.

Everybody is in a little bit of a different scenario, and everybody was thought of individually. It’s not, hey, here is the book on this. Everybody was thought through. Each and every person was thought through individually.

Q. With RB Saquon Barkley specifically, what was the consideration in allowing him to pursue that record and ultimately deciding not to? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: Not going to get into all that. Obviously, a lot plays into that. It’s a very special record that’s been standing for a very long time by a great player. It’s a team record that everybody is involved in, so you weigh in all those things.

But at the end of the day, you just try to do what’s best for the team. Again, when the bye was, how guys are feeling, the bumps and bruises we can take care of.

We’ve put ourselves in a position to be able to be in this situation. And our goals are to have success and to play good the next game we play. Not only New York, but whoever we play after that. We think this plays into that.

It’s not easy. It wasn’t the easiest decision to go through, but we have great people in this building and had a lot of input from a lot of different people, players included.

[Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie and I discussed a bunch. Position coaches and coordinators and I discussed a bunch. I discussed with players. We have just selfless guys that want to do what’s best for the football team. And getting some guys some rest who have been grinding for the past, what did you say, 12 weeks, we felt that was in the best interest of the team.

Q. Was RB Saquon Barkley involved in the conversation? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: Of course I talked to [RB] Saquon [Barkley], yeah.

Q. Do you have a decision at quarterback? (Bob Brookover)

NICK SIRIANNI: We’ll see as the week progresses and where we are as we continue on. So we’ll see.

Q. What was your conversation with RB Saquon Barkley like? (Tim McManus)

NICK SIRIANNI: I’ll keep my conversations private with these guys. Just discussing with him and where he was and what he felt. You guys can talk to him, but I’ll always keep my conversations private with these guys.

Q. Players who won’t play on Sunday, how do you want them to handle this week? (Dave Zangaro)

NICK SIRIANNI: Get better this week, just like we do each and every week. Want to go out there and try to win this football game, just like we do every week. What an opportunity for some of the guys that are going to be playing that maybe don’t get as many reps.

So huge, huge, huge opportunity for some people to do it in an NFL regular season game.

Again, this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this scenario. You look back at your notes on that. You always grow from different things that you go through with these scenarios.

Excited for these guys and their opportunity to go out there and play.

Q. How is QB Jalen Hurts doing, and is he still in concussion protocol? (Olivia Reiner)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he’s still in there. We’ll see as the week progresses through.

Q. You started TE Dallas Goedert’s practice window. How important is it to get him back in the mix, and how quickly do you think that’s going to be possible? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: We’ll see. It’s hard to tell. You can never really tell. Getting back on the field and doing things, started his window, and it’ll be super important to have him back. He’s a great football player who has helped this team win a lot of football games.

So really excited for the possibility of getting him back, and like I said, we’ll see when that happens. But it’s just good to get him back on the field and get him practicing again, seeing him out there because he is a presence for our offense.

Q. You mentioned talking to Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman. Was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Lurie involved in the conversation as well? (Bo Wulf)

NICK SIRIANNI: I talk to everybody about everything. Use all inputs. So of course I talk to [Chairman and Chief Executive Officer] Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie about everything. Good communication is what good organizations do. We have so many resources here to be able to discuss and talk.

You use all those. Ultimately, I had to make the decision of what I felt was the best for the team. Luckily, we have great, selfless guys on this football team. But at the end of the day, I had to make the decision of what I felt was best. This is the direction we went.

So many good resources. [Chairman and Chief Executive Officer] Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie [and I], we’ve been in this since I’ve been here, but [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] and [Chairman and Chief Executive Officer] Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie have been in this same situation multiple times as well in addition to the past four years. So they have a lot of experience in this as well.

Of course you use all resources that you have at your hands to help you make the best decision for the football team.

Q. Can you tell us if QB Jalen Hurts is progressing through the protocol? (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: I’m not sure. I don’t think I [can] talk about the protocol. Protocol is what it is. Again, we listen to the doctors, we follow the doctors’ advice in this. They do this by design, so the people that are involved in the concussion protocol are the ones that are handling those things.

We just take it day by day and see where they are each and every day.

Q. You hold importance for records and try to communicate those things. How do you frame what RB Saquon Barkley has done this year without it? (Brooks Kubena)

NICK SIRIANNI: Awesome.

I guess I didn’t really know exactly who those nine guys were on that list of 2000 yard rushers. I have an idea because I saw it, but those are – are they all Hall of Fame players? Most of them Hall of Fame Players? [Ravens RB Derrick] Henry is obviously…

Q. Former NFL RB Jamal Lewis should be in there, but he’s not. (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Okay, so [Former NFL RB] Jamal Lewis. Who else?

Q. Former NFL RB Chris Johnson. (Jeff Kerr)

NICK SIRIANNI: Okay, so he’s not in, but you know…

Q. Former NFL RB Adrian Peterson, but he’ll be in. (Indiscernible.) (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah.

Q. Hall of Fame RB O.J. Simpson. (Merrill Reese)

NICK SIRIANNI: There you go. So you hear the list, right? You hear the list. A lot of really phenomenal players.

[Hall of Fame RB] Barry Sanders on it? Yeah.

All right, so a lot of really phenomenal football players. A lot of them that are in the Hall of Fame, so that’s a special thing for the team. That’s a special thing for Saquon.

You think back, and I think there’s probably been about four or five quarters – if you add up all the time that some of our starters have missed through the year with us having leads in the fourth quarter, that’s almost a game, too.

So you look back at that, and you really go through those things and you say, this is the best thing you could do for these guys at the time to make sure that they’re healthy. I think that, again, all those things add up.

Having the bye 12 weeks ago is part of that process. You think about all the times that they’ve had off in this fourth quarter, and we’ve noticed through a ten-game winning streak that some of those games that you have off – we were able to have a quarter off before we played Washington on a Thursday. That mattered, right? All those quarters that they had off during that win streak, those mattered for the next game, and they mattered for the next game.

Again, I can’t tell you how selfless this football team is. I won’t get into each and every discussion I had with everybody, but I know that the common denominator of what was coming out of all their mouths was, let’s just do what’s best for the team.

Man, that’s a special group of guys that we have. Really, really fortunate to be associated with these guys.

Q. Did you think back at all to the conversation you had with RB Saquon Barkley up in New York? You said, ‘It’s up to you’? (Bob Brookover)

NICK SIRIANNI: Oh, yeah. No, I didn’t really think about that. But again, he’s awesome. Awesome teammate. You guys have gotten to know him. I think it’s pretty obvious how special this guy is.

Q. What’s different this time, either with the situation or with you as a coach, compared to ’21 when you had WR DeVonta Smith play early in that game to get that record? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: It’s different positions too. There is a lot that goes into it. Every team is different. Again, you have past situations that you’ve been in, and you take all those things into account.

At the end of the day, every team, every individual is different. You’ve always got to weigh all those things in there.

It’s a different situation. It’s a different scenario. We used ’22 and ’21 as a guide, but, again, just like you treat every individual different, you do every situation as well.