Nick Sirianni
Q. I want to ask you about Colts S Rodney McLeod playing him again and what’s he done for that Colts defense? (Ed Kracz)
NICK SIRIANNI: [Colts S] Rodney [McLeod] brings a lot of leadership to any team that he’s on. He’s a great person, great player, great leader, super smart, and you can see that he’s identifying plays that are coming and that he’s a step quick to it because of how his accelerated vision works and how smart of a football player he is.
So, we need to know that, and we do know that and have to make sure we put some seeds of doubt in his head. So, a lot of respect for Rodney. Look forward to saying hello to him after the game, but he’s playing good football.
Q. Why did you feel the need to add two interior defensive linemen this week? (Jeff McLane)
NICK SIRIANNI: We are always looking to improve our team and add depth to our team, and we felt like two guys that were really good players, we were able to do that. Now we have some guys banged up as you know and so adding depth to a position that’s already a strength was big for us and especially with the injuries that we have right now.
Q. With DT Ndamukong Suh how long was that in the works? What’s the plan for him moving forward? (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: I’m not going to get into how long that was in or anything like that. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll see where, you know, how quick it is till he’s ready, all those different things. We have some time to work with them and teach him the defense and everything like that, but we’ll see how that goes.
We don’t have to give any information on if he’ll start this week, if he’ll play this week. Probably not getting that from me, right. One, there’s a little bit of an unknown; and two, I don’t want the Colts to know anything.
Q. How much does it help in that DT Ndamukong Suh and DT Linval Joseph have played a lot of football? How much does that help to get them up to speed this late in the process? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: The fact that they have been on different defenses and different teams, and they have been forced to learn multiple defenses, that’s huge, right, in the sense of these guys are professionals. They have been in this a long time, and they know what it takes to get themselves ready, not only their bodies ready but their minds ready to go to go out there and rip it.
Q. Do they add toughness? Not that you lack toughness, but DT Ndamukong Suh and DT Linval Joseph, what can you say about that? (Bob Grotz)
NICK SIRIANNI: One thing when you are looking at toughness of your football team, you are looking at how you’re blocking, how you’re knocking back blocks, how you’re tackling, how you’re protecting the football. Those are all things that you’re looking at.
And so these guys can do that, and they definitely add toughness to the football player, of a team that, like you said, has already got a lot of toughness and we think that that’s one of our main identities of how tough our team is right. The guys that we have in this building are tough, and they play through things. They are mentally tough, physically tough. These guys just add to that.
Q. That’s four D-tackles who have Pro Bowl resumés, established players. I’d imagine that as this gets going, they’re going to want to be on the field in certain situations. How do you navigate that? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: You just go through and you’re making sure that the guys are getting the reps that they need. The good thing right now is with the guys that we have right now, we’re a little thin on it.
So, we don’t have to worry about that right now. That’s something that we all — that’s something, too, there are a lot of things to worry about. We’ve also got to worry about who we’re going to draft this off-season, but that’s not in the thought process at this particular point, and we’ll manage that when we need to manage that.
Q. Are you worried about chemistry? (Jeff McLane)
NICK SIRIANNI: I’m not.
Q. How about having those guys can trickle down to young guys like DT Jordan Davis, even though he’s not playing, DT Marlon Tuipulotu, even though he’s on IR, how much can that benefit them? (Martin Frank)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, just the same way you see how [DT Fletcher] Fletch [Cox] and [C Jason] Kelce benefit [C/G] Cam [Jurgens] and [DT] Jordan [Davis], right, or [DT] Javon [Hargrave] benefits Jordan.
Now you’re able to not only watch the tape of techniques or things that are fundamentals that are happening on tape, you can actually ask the person that is performing on tape how that looks. Because on our teach tapes, you’re going to have Fletch on there and Hargrave on there and you’re going to have different guys throughout the league, so you’ll have [DT Ndamukong] Suh and [DT] Linval [Joseph] on those tapes and you’re able to talk through different things with them and grow as a football player.
Q. I don’t know how familiar you are with this, but during the 2017 season, the front office added a bunch of players that had won Super Bowls in the past. Did that factor in in any way this year? (Jimmy Kempski)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, just looking to add — it’s a bonus, that’s for sure. First of all, you’re looking to add a player that’s going to help you, their talent is going to help you. You’re making sure that the fit is the right fit.
You always want guys that know what it feels like to put the flag at the top of the mountain, right? Whether that’s college football or whether that’s professional football, and we obviously have guys here that were on the 2017 team, and now you have guys that have Lombardi trophies on different teams and then you also have guys, that’s why we’ve really these last couple years, have really valued [G] Landon Dickerson, [WR] DeVonta [Smith], [LB] Nakobe [Dean] and Jordan because they have done it in the college level and that’s huge. That’s a really big thing to have guys with that experience that know how to win.