Nick Sirianni

Q. WR DeVonta Smith was talking in the locker room about how at halftime he was going around to everyone saying that deep ball was there and everything. I was wondering if A, he had relayed that to you, and B, how important is it to get that kind of input from players when they see something and then obviously end up calling the play? (Martin Frank)

Nick Sirianni: We talk about everything. I know Smitty was in communication with the offensive coaches, what he was seeing. That’s pretty standard in between series in the locker room. You’re getting everybody’s input. Smitty does a great job of communicating what he’s seeing out there. He’s got great football instincts and football IQ, so he gives you that confidence to be able to call things in those scenarios when he sees something.

We have a lot of high football IQ guys; We have a lot of guys like that. That gives you a lot of confidence to be able to go. Just like I kind of talked about with fourth down yesterday, you have confidence in the players to go make a play in critical situations. It’s the same thing with things that they’re seeing because they have a different point of view than we have from the press box or from the sideline because they are on the field looking at it. It’s great to be able to have players like DeVonta that can relay what he’s seeing, and you can trust that what he’s seeing and what he’s telling you is good information. It’s just like having another set of eyes from coaches out there on the field.

Q. You guys had a ton of success passing the ball from under center yesterday. I know this might be complicated to answer without giving away game plan stuff, but is there a simple way to explain why yesterday it really worked for you guys and you used it, as opposed to the first six games of the season? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously yesterday, there were a little bit more under-center runs, so you mesh up your play actions and your passes with some of those things. Some things that we studied in that mini-bye are things that we looked at, and that’s kind of why you got to see some of the things that you saw yesterday. It’s always going to be important that your run and your play action pass game mesh together because a defense has to go from a run defense to then be a pass rusher, which is difficult for a defensive line. I know we talk a lot about that as our defense. You always want to have those things mesh, and yesterday, that meshed together the way you saw.

Q. Obviously, you just played the Giants a couple weeks ago, didn’t go well. How do you take that game? What do you do with that game? Do you emphasize the revenge factor this coming week and remind them, or do you just kind of focus like it’s any other game? (Reuben Frank)

Nick Sirianni: Focus like it’s any other game. Now, it’s a unique game in which you play a team the second time, and it’s even more unique that it’s been one week of games since then. Just like everything we talk about– I know you guys ask me on a Thursday night, or a short week, or a Monday night game, or a first game, or snow game. You have things that you look at because it’s unique, it’s slightly different. But nothing changes in respect to your process. You still have a week to prepare. Business as usual, but we’ll have some things that we look at as coaches knowing that we just played them, and we know that they will as well.

Q. Whose idea was it to add the outside backers to the catch circuit and how often do you make changes like that to a practice week? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: I don’t think it’s necessary to say it’s this person’s idea or that person’s idea. We’re not looking for credit; we’re looking for contribution. That’s what we try to preach to the entire team is contribution over credit, and we know how important fundamentals are. Anything like, ‘Hey, we need more work at this strip attempt,’ then you might put a drill into your circuit there. Or, ‘Hey, we need to add this group into the catch circuit,’ and you may do that as well.

Just because you do something a certain way and you’ve had success with the fundamentals that we have, doesn’t mean you’re constantly not thinking about how you make that process and those drills and the things that you do better, because that’s all you’re constantly thinking about. You find ways to win and then you find ways to get better. That’s on our mind in everything that we do, so there’s constant tweaks and different things [we do] to our process and to our practices to help make it the best it can be so we can put ourselves in position to win on the weekend.

Q. We saw how QB Jalen Hurts responded to a couple losses in a row there with his performance on the field, and then as he’s walking off the field, he had the comment like, ‘We’re not losing anymore.’ What have you kind of learned about his response to when you guys do go through, whether it’s one game or two games of losing, and his relationship to that that helps us understand how he’s wired? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: Hyper-competitive guy. You love that. Wants to win. A lot of people want to win, but are they willing to do the things that winning requires? I think that’s what you get with Jalen. He wants to win in the worst way, and he is willing to do anything and everything that winning requires. That path to the locker room’s always an emotional time, too. I don’t think you can put too much stock into what we say [there.] Probably have to get you guys out of that area so we can just walk freely into there and say what’s on our mind at that particular [moment] because it’s such an emotional game. The easiest way to sum that up is that he wants to win in the worst way and will do everything that winning requires, which is a lot throughout the week.

Q. Curious to what you saw from the film when it came to the running game. Obviously, it was pretty effective on that first drive, and kind of weaned from there. You were able to toggle and had tremendous success in the passing game, but just what you saw? (John McMullen)

Nick Sirianni: They did a good job of making some adjustments after that first drive to force us to try to win another way. We did a good job as offensive coaches and with the players of countering those adjustments. That’s the way football goes. It’s a constant game of adjusting and seeing how they adjust, and so good job by them adjusting.

We know we want to be a balanced team, but we really don’t care how it looks. We’ll do whatever we need to do to win each and every game and then find ways to get better from there. I encourage the guys just to focus on that; focus on everything you can do to win and focus on everything you can do to get better. Understand that’s how football goes, that you’ve got to have multiple ways to win. Great job by our team and our offense to get it going a different way, but we still want to be a balanced attack on offense.

Q. You guys have already had a lot of trades in training camp and in-season, and Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman obviously trades more than any other GM in the league. Having been a position coach or coordinator, now that you’re head coach, how do you deal with the conversations that need to take place with your assistants? And then, how that filters down to the other players of how the trades affect them and playing time and all that goes into that? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: I think it’s important that you always have constant communication with your guys on every front because it takes everybody. When you draft a guy high, I think back to when we drafted [Colts RB] Jonathan Taylor in Indy. The first call we make is obviously to Jonathan to tell him we drafted him, but then the next one’s to [former Colts RB] Marlon Mack to let him know that there’s always constant competition. Just reminding them of the core values. There’s always constant competition. Best guys will play. It doesn’t mean you’re any less important to this football team because it takes everybody and it’s going to take everybody.

I think that constant communication with the guys is always important there. I think Howie and I do a good job of just communicating the vision for the guys and this and that and how we may use them. I think that’s always an important factor of it as well. I think when you’re dealing with players, you’re dealing with the position coaches, it always comes down to communication and still understanding that regardless of what happens, everybody’s needed. Everybody’s contribution is needed. We’ll need everybody to achieve the goals that we want to achieve. We’ll need everybody involved. That doesn’t mean everybody has to like it, but I think the most important thing is that you’re always open and honest and communicating.

Q. At the end of the first half when QB Jalen Hurts takes the sack, third-and-13 with a little over 20 seconds left. How come no time out and just head to the locker room? (Bo Wulf)

Nick Sirianni: We have different variations of what we do on two-minute of how we attack, and that was a time right there where third-and-13, you have two timeouts. In that particular case, it was time to let that drive end and go to the locker room. Third-and-13 is not a guarantee. I believe in our team and believe in our guys at all costs, but you’ve also got to play smart.

Third-and-13 in that situation where you’re not in a guaranteed, ‘Hey I’m getting points if I convert this third-and-13, I’m still going to have work to do once I do get this third-and-13,’ the risks kind of outweigh the potential benefits from it. At that point, you don’t get it and then you have to punt. I know what we would do in punt; Return in that scenario. In that particular case, we played that exactly how I wanted to.

Obviously, I wanted to go and get points, which is why you saw the drive go as it was, but once we did take the sack, we played that how I wanted to play that. I have no regrets there.

Q. Are you also factoring in how you were playing on offense at the time as opposed to just the situation? (Bo Wulf)

Nick Sirianni: Everything’s always taken into account. We have our stipulations with pretty much every scenario you could possibly imagine, but within all those situations, you take [into] account everything that’s going on in the game and your past experiences, to be quite honest with you.

Q. You guys obviously made the most of your mini-bye and you got QB Jalen Hurts under center, as you alluded to earlier. I was wondering if C Cam Jurgen’s injury had anything to do with it. Was he under center more after that because of the injury? And just what you thought of him being under center, how comfortable he looked and how comfortable he looked throwing the ball over the middle and how that worked with the play action. Even though you guys weren’t gaining a lot with RB Saquon Barkley running, you still committed to running and how that played into the play action success. (Christiaan DeFranco)

Nick Sirianni: You go into a game and you’re always thinking about the players that you have. We have a lot of faith and confidence in [OL] Brett Toth. That’s why he was in there. Nothing really changed when Brett got in the game because Brett does such a good job of preparing like a starter and he is always ready when called upon.

If you have a perfect quarterback rating, you obviously played a really good game, and Jalen did. He played awesome. He played really awesome, but when you have a perfect quarterback rating, that may be a Jalen stat, but that’s a team stat, [too.] It took great protection, which we had really good protection against a really good front all day. It took the commitment to the run game to try to get that going to open some other stuff up. It took unbelievable catches by the wide receivers and route detail and discipline. It’s just a cool stat that emphasizes the whole team.

We will see how things move forward as far as the ways we want to attack. Every game calls for different things. This is what this game called for, and these are some of the things that came off our self-scout. We’ll continue to work and find ways to get better.

Q. You got kind of a unique look on the tush push yesterday. Is that what caused that timeout before the second one? Just out of curiosity. You called the timeout before they challenged the catch. Would you have gotten the timeout back if that had not– (Bob Brookover)

Nick Sirianni: They challenged the catch and that was the timeout. I didn’t call a timeout there.

Q. When you look at that, what kind of challenge does that front present maybe that you guys hadn’t seen before? (Bob Brookover)

Nick Sirianni: We ran it one time and we got it one time. When we lined up for another one, we jumped offsides, so we really didn’t get the opportunity to run it there. But we’re always going to see new and unique ways. That’s not new to us. When you run something the amount of times that we’ve ran that play, you’re going to see everything. You’re going to see unique ways; you’re going to see teams working on that all offseason to try to figure out how to stop it.

We’ve seen a ton, but then they threw something a little bit different at us. We’re ready for that. We’re ready to account for that and we’re expecting those different things, and we will have little wrinkles based off of the way they’re lining up to counter some of those things.

Q. I guess in that spirit at center, we’ve seen you take different approaches to the backup spot. What dictates whether you move G Landon Dickerson over or put OL Brett Toth in there? How is that approach different in a non-game day situation? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: Flexibility is huge, and to have guys that can play multiple spots is really important. You always need multiple centers ready on game day just because not everybody can do that job. You decide what’s best in that moment. Is it Landon there and Brett in for Landon, or do you just have one change there?

I think at the end of the day, what helps you make those decisions is your trust in the guys that are ready to step in. This game produces so many moments where guys are called upon that maybe you didn’t think would be called upon. They’re in uniform, they’re ready to be called upon, and you think about it, but you don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen. We’ve had so many good contributions.

One of the coolest pictures I have from last year is, it wasn’t just the five offensive linemen holding up [RB] Saquon [Barkley] after he rushed for 2000 yards. It was everybody that made that happen, and it wasn’t just those five guy. It was a bunch of offensive linemen that stepped in and made plays, and it was everybody on the offense to be quite honest, but it was a special moment between Saquon and the offensive line. What I thought was so cool about that is that there were eight or nine guys in that picture, not just the five.

Q. Anything you can tell us on C Cam Jurgens? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: We’ll see. I haven’t gotten with the doctors quite yet. That’ll be a little bit later. I usually get with them a little bit after I talk to you guys. Just finishing up with the players right now and about to get into our game planning purposes. That’s usually the time I get with them, so we’ll see. I know he’ll do everything he can do to be as ready as soon as he possibly can.