Nick Sirianni

Q. Do you expect QB Jalen Hurts back at practice today? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he’ll be out there today. We’ll get you the injury report after practice. We’ll see how it goes, but we’ll get you the injury after practice today.

Q. The decision to go outside today and go over to the stadium, what led to that? (Ed Kracz)

NICK SIRIANNI: The field is frozen outside. We’ve tried to get outside as much as we possibly can. We play outside, so unless it’s a torrential downpour or the wind is completely out of control, we’re going to go outside.

Can’t go out there today as far as our facility because the field will be frozen, so we will go over to the stadium.

Q. With QB Jalen Hurts missing most of three games, are you worried at all about rust with him? (Dave Zangaro)

NICK SIRIANNI: No, I think I answered this to somebody, I can’t remember who, earlier this week. That’s why you practice. This is why you go through the process of practicing and all the things that you do at practice to get on the same page and do everything there.

We feel like we practice at a very high intensity level. Yeah, this is why you go out there and do those things.

Q. Has the two weeks also given his finger a chance to heal? Is that much better than it was? (Martin Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he’s continuing to get better.

Q. In his time away, did you give him any kind of project to look forward to with future opponents? I know he didn’t know the Packers until Sunday. (Brooks Kubena)

NICK SIRIANNI: He’s always working on different things and getting himself ready to play the opponent, self-scouting things. He constantly works at that.

Q. With the postseason here, you can have padded practices again. Are you back in the pads, and will Wednesday’s practices be different than they were in December? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: Always depends on the last game. Today we’ll be in pads. For me to say right now, hey, through the playoffs, we’ll always be in pads, you just don’t know how each individual game goes.

So you play that based off the circumstances, everything like that. But today we’ll be in pads. I think that’s really important. We’re going to play a very physical team [in] the Packers. I mean, I can’t tell you enough how well coached I think they are and how good their players are.

I’ve just got a lot of respect for this team. You can tell on the film how much they talk about fundamentals. You can tell on the film how much effort they give, and that’s a direct reflection of their coaching staff and their players.

Q. Are there any restrictions on QB Jalen Hurts today or is he able to – (Tim McManus)

NICK SIRIANNI: We’ll give you a practice report when you get out there.

Q. It’s such a long season, 18 weeks. To be at this point, it looks like fully healthy, what does that say? What does that speak to? (Ed Kracz)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I feel like the main thing that you want to do is make sure you’re getting better throughout the year.

So you always push it so you’re practicing, doing the details and the fundamentals in practice, while you’re also very conscious that it’s an 18-week season. It’s a balance that a lot of people contribute to.

Ultimately, I have to make the final decisions on what I think is best for the team of how we practice and all those different things, but get a lot of different contributions from the strength staff, from the training staff, from the doctors. Couldn’t do that without them. And then you also talk to the players, how they’re feeling and always being in constant communication with them.

But at the end of the day, yeah, sure, luck has something to do with it because there are some unlucky situations that happen where you lose guys. But you can’t say enough about how much the guys have put into taking care of their bodies, from the nutrition, being at the weights that they’re supposed to be at, to how they pre-hab, to how they rehab, all the different things that they do.

You go down there, and there are always guys doing stuff with the strength staff to get ready for practice with the pre-hab. That’s why we give them a good amount of time before practice. That’s why we moved you guys until after practice, so they could have ample time to get themselves ready for practice.

Again, you can have all the right people in place. [Eagles Chairman and Chief Executive Officer] Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie, so appreciative we have all these guys in place and the organization we have. But at the end of the day, these guys have got to go out and do it. They’ve really taken a lot of pride in taking care of their bodies and taking care of themselves.

Q. The Packers’ offense is No. 1 in terms of explosive pass plays; your defense is No. 1 in limiting explosive pass plays. What will it take for you guys to win that battle? What do they do so well that gives them the opportunity to throw – (Jeff McLane)

NICK SIRIANNI: First and foremost, again, I can’t tell you how much I think of [Packers Head] Coach [Matt] LeFleur and his offensive staff and his offensive mind, putting the guys in positions to succeed. I’ve just watched him have success year in, year out. He’s done it with different players.

I just have a lot of respect for him and all the things that he’s done in this league. And then you see they’re able to run the football to be able to do some different things that come off that.

They’ve got good players. Again, they have good schemes. It’s good on good. It’s good on good in everything we talk about. It’s going to be good on good in the explosive play differential. At the end of the day, when you take offense and defense the way we number it up, we’re No. 1; They’re No. 3, 4, 5, somewhere in there.

Then in turnover differential, I know we are very close there as well. I went over that with the team today.

It’s good on good in the things we really stress. Obviously, you can see when you watch their tape, they stress the same things. When you’re talking about giving up big plays on defense, it always starts with being on the same page.

We’ve got to work our butts off in our meetings and in our walk-through and in our practice today to make sure we’re on the same page for the different problems that they create.

Tackling, so if they do check the ball down, you get the ball carried down. That’s a challenge against these guys. They have really good guys that are dangerous with the ball in their hands as far as the pass game goes.

And so, again, it always comes down to that. Being in the right positions, being on the same page, tackling, and effort to the football.

Q. How did you set the tone with your players through your messaging this week? (Tim McManus)

NICK SIRIANNI: The main thing we really talked about was like, as you come in here, you don’t say, ‘Hey, we won 14 games, won the NFC East. Now here is what we’re going to do.’

Sometimes you go through different things, like the different schedules that the NFL challenges you with. You have notes of what you would do here, what you would do there. Really at the end of the day, it’s getting back to our toughness, detail, and together, and understanding that our process through the week is what gives you a chance to win a football game.

It doesn’t guarantee you a chance to win the football game, but it gives you a chance to play to the best of your abilities. It gives you a chance, again, to win. A better chance to win the football game when you go through the week like this.

That’s been the message all year.

Again, I don’t think you want any of your guys going, ‘All right, now it’s the playoffs. Here is what I’m going to do now.’ Doesn’t work that way. A winner’s mindset is the same week in, week out. That’s what our message was today, and it will be the rest of the week as well.

Q. The goal is to have your team playing the best football going into the postseason. With all the changes over the past week, the injuries, the week off, do you still feel like you’re playing your best football? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I think we’ve gotten better as the year has continued on. What do you attribute that to? You attribute that to the way you practice.

Same reason I’m not worried about rust in that scenario, because I know how we go out and practice, and I know the emphasis we have in walk-through and the meetings that you can continue to get better.

And it’s the relentless effort by our scout team in practice, and the relentless effort by our team in practice. That vision of how you get better is in the forefront of our mind.

We looked at some numbers today of where we finished in some different stats. Every little report might be a little different, but we were in the top 10 in all our detail stuff. We were in the top 10 of our tackling. We were in the top 10 of takeaways. We were in the top 10 of giveaways. We were in the top 10 of drops. [WR] A.J. [Brown] led the NFL in least amount of drops percentage-wise, which I don’t think you can get better than zero. 97 targets and no drops, which is quite impressive.

Then we talked today about how, hey, if the NFL took a stat on block destruction, we feel like we would be in the top 10 there. Or combination blocks between offensive lineman, we feel like we would be in the top 10 there.

My point is you just constantly try to get better at those things. Obviously we were low on the takeaway and the giveaway area early in the year, and we’ve gotten better at that.

We didn’t tackle real well against Green Bay when we first played them. We put ourselves in a hole. We’ve gotten better at that.

So you see that through the fundamentals. You see that through the guys being on the same page. You see that with how the guys interact with each other because connecting is such a big deal here. We feel like we’ve continued to get better, but we’ve got to go out and show it.

Q. A sentiment that some players have had is that it’s a college-like feel here. A, how do you perceive that? And B, is that an objective of yours? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: I love that. Again, I think at the end of the day, I got my start, learned as I was growing up from a high school coach. And then in the college world is where I started.

We talk a ton about culture and connecting. And I always thought of it this way: When you play in high school – like the guys that came to our game a couple weeks ago were my high school buddies. I knew them my entire life growing up, so you have a natural connection with them.

The guys you go to college with, you’re all away from home for the first time, and y’all are living right in the same dorms or whatever it is, hanging out with each other. There is a natural connection here.

There are a lot of different things that challenge connection in the NFL. Some guys live in Jersey. Some guys live in Philly. Some guys live on the Main Line. Some guys live in Delco. I don’t want to leave anybody out.

Some guys have families. Some guys are single. Some guys have girlfriends. Everybody is in a different stage a little bit in the NFL, so you have to work at that to create that.

I think that’s what you appreciate so much about these guys, is how much they’ve worked to connect with each other. I know this: At the end of the day, if you’re a connected football team, that doesn’t guarantee you win anything, but it guarantees that you don’t want to let that person down.

[T] Lane [Johnson] said it perfectly a couple weeks ago. We’re so committed to being together and having a tight football team that we have a little bit more on the line that we don’t want to let – I’m paraphrasing, I don’t know exactly how he said it – we have a little bit more on the line that we don’t want to let each other down.

That’s the key to it. I want there to be joy when they walk in here and see their pictures on the walls and on the video screens and have success and root for the success of the other guys there.

All those things that I just talked about don’t happen without special people. We have some special, special guys here that make that happen. Culture is your habits. Your habits are what happens by the team. We have some special guys that accomplish that.

Q. You’ve got some young guys on defense that are going to be experiencing the NFL playoffs for the first time. How would you describe how it changes the intensity, especially a home game at the Linc? (John Clark)

NICK SIRIANNI: Who did I answer that earlier with? Same process. Same everything. Everyone is going to tell you how much bigger this atmosphere is and how much bigger this is. Will there be more people on the sideline? I always notice there are a little bit more people on the sideline; There are a couple more former players on the sideline, broadcasting, right?

Normally, I would see there being a couple new faces in the media here. Not today. You guys have been here all year. So I don’t see anybody new.

But it’s really, don’t do anything different than what you’ve been doing. When the stakes get higher, when the game gets bigger, you need to lockdown and do the tough, detail, together. You’ve got to lockdown and do the preparation that goes throughout the week.

So you’ve got to go and do your business to put yourself in the position to succeed. That’s it.

When you really sit down and think about it, these guys are at the pinnacle of their sport. So some of them have played in state championship games. Some of them have played in national championship games. Some of them have played in rival games that are bigger rivals than anybody has ever played in, right?

Iowa-Iowa State is a big rivalry for [DB Cooper DeJean] Coop. That doesn’t mean one is bigger than the other. You go to a high school football game, you go to Southwestern verse Falconer – Southwestern is my team, Falconer was our rival – you go to that school and say, ‘This game is not as important as a playoff game in the NFL.’ Those kids are going to – ‘That game is important to me.’ There is nothing bigger to me than this game right now.

These guys have been playing in these their entire lives. I want them to stick on their process, I want to stick with what got us here, and not think about anything else other than – again, I don’t think it’s a winner’s mindset to be like, ‘Here is what I’m doing different now,’ or ‘Here is how this game is going to be different.’

Screw that. It’s about what we do all week. It’s about us.