Nick Sirianni

Q. Obviously, the offense continues to be a talking point after the first 12 weeks. What gives you confidence that with six weeks to go it can find its footing without possibly making any coaching changes? (Ed Kracz)

Nick Sirianni: I feel like we’ve got the right people as players, as coaches, that have had success. We’re all searching for answers to make it more consistent. There are some good things, obviously there are some not so good things, and we’ve got to find the things that we really can hang our hat on and then the compliments that come off of that. When we talk about identity, we always want to play ‘tough, detailed, together.’ That’s never changing, but the way you play each individual game can change. It can’t be just, ‘Hey, we’ve got to run it better,’ or ‘Hey, we’ve got to pass it better,’ or ‘Hey, we’ve got to play action better,’ because at some point in each of these games that we have left, and really all that we’re focused on is this next one, it’ll have to be a little bit of everything to reach the goals that we want to reach.

Q. Can you confirm S Drew Mukuba’s going to be out and fractured his ankle? Also, in correlation to that, potentially CB Michael Carter moving back to the back end and how you thought he played in the opportunities he had in Dallas? (John McMullen)

Nick Sirianni: You guys saw the report, he’ll be out for some time and we’ll see. I’ll never put a timetable on a guy. We’ll see how long, but he will miss a little bit of time here. But we’ll see how long. I think we have good options there. Mike will be in one of them. [S] Sydney [Brown]– [S] Reed [Blankenship]’s still manning everything back there. We’ve got some guys that we have confidence in on the practice squad as well. This is why you need your entire roster. It’s never just the 53 guys; it’s the 70 guys. You never know when those guys’ opportunity will come, and here we are.

Q. Last night, RB Saquon Barkley said after the game that he thought the Cowboys maybe wanted it a little bit more. I was wondering what it means to you when a leader of the team says something like that. (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, we want to go out and put our best effort out at every point, and I felt like when I watched the tape, I saw the effort sky high on both sides of the ball [and] on special teams. Obviously, they went and they got the win. There are always things that factor into it as far as our determination, our effort. I saw that it was high and we all have to be there. I think, like I said, we were. Obviously, Saquon felt something last night and he’s got a great pulse for everything. But as you look at the tape– which obviously after the game, we don’t have the luxury of looking at the tape before we go in and talk to you guys, but I felt like the effort was really, really high in that game. Hats off to Dallas, they played a good game and they got us.

Q. Have you contemplated making a change at the offensive play caller position? And if not, why the confidence in Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo this far into the season? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: No, I haven’t. Again, we are always looking for answers. As coaches, we’re always looking for answers and we’re never into assigning blame. It’s just looking for answers. I think what sometimes can happen is it’s like, ‘It’s just this.’ Well, it’s not just that. It’s every piece of the puzzle; coaching, playing, execution, scheme, everything. We’ve got to be better in all of those aspects. Yesterday, I thought Kevin did a good job of calling it. Obviously, he’s going to want plays back just like every player and myself, we all want plays back. When you’re going through it like that, that’s what you’re always looking at. It’s never in football just one thing, even though you’re always trying to find answers. So, no, I haven’t considered that.

Q. I was just hoping to get some clarification on this five-down thing. G Landon Dickerson said after the game that, or at least suggested, that there wasn’t enough time on task done to prepare for it because it wasn’t typically something the Cowboys had done. Yet, they had been doing it the last few games, and even QB Jalen Hurts had said that they were trying to get their three good defensive tackles on the field at the same time. I’m just wondering what’s the disconnect there. Was that accurate that you guys hadn’t prepared enough in trying to counter the five-man front? And if so, that’s not like it’s something new. Why have you guys struggled? Why weren’t there ways to beat that? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: You go into every week and you’re trying to play the game in your mind as much as you possibly can, not just with how you call it, but how you plan it for practice as well and how you plan for drills and everything. The walkthroughs, the practice, your drill work, you’re trying to identify what you think. What you’re always trying to do is say, ‘How many reps do I need to devote towards this? How many reps do I need to devote towards that? How many reps do I devote towards this?’ And you try to make educated guesses there, and obviously, with that we devoted time for all of them. We knew they had that in their package and their plan, especially with those guys and we went in and said, ‘Here’s how many we’re devoting towards this.’ Obviously, they played a little bit more there, even than anticipated.

Of course as coaches you say to yourself, ‘Well, I wish I would’ve given them a couple more reps on this one.’ Now, you’re limited as far as how many reps you actually have in walkthrough and live and in drill work, and that’s why you’re trying to make your best case. And like I said, no one’s ever going to pitch a perfect game here, and that’s in your planning sometimes as well. Looking back at it, you’re like, ‘Yeah, sure, I wish we would’ve given us a couple more reps there,’ but that’s how you go into a game of thinking about it on that. Those are the discussions that we have as coaches after the game. We prepared for the things that we thought we were going to get, some more than others. Sometimes it doesn’t play out that way when you look at it after the game.

Q. Obviously, the penalties were a big problem yesterday, but offensive penalties have been a consistent issue for you guys this year. You’ve had a couple of different chances this year to do some self-scouting with some breaks. Are you noticing common themes? This late in the season, why are you struggling to correct it at this point? (Jeff Neiburg)

Nick Sirianni: We’ve got to keep grinding it out to fix it, right? Again, that’s our job is to try to figure out and identify issues and try to fix them. Anytime that we have those penalties like that, and we had penalties– I think I said to [FOX Sports Sideline Reporter] Erin Andrews at halftime is like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to stop some of the penalties. We’re getting behind the sticks now.’ We were catching up a little bit in those first three drives, we’d get a penalty and we’d overcome it, but it’s hard to sustain the success of a game when you have those.

Anytime it’s penalties like that or anytime it’s ball security or anytime it’s the fundamentals or something within ‘tough, detailed, together,’ I’m always going to put that on myself. Point blank, I have to do a better job of coaching it and finding different ways to make sure it gets through there.

Now with that being said, I think I’ve mentioned this to you guys before. Sometimes the penalties are in the heat of the battle and those happen, right? There’s going to be holds in every game and sometimes they get called, sometimes they don’t. Those things happen in the heat of battle. It’s really our mission to, obviously fix those things, but also fix the stuff that happens before the snap or after the whistle. Penalties come in many different shapes and forms as far as in the heat of the battle, and sometimes we didn’t put them in a position to succeed well enough where they are reaching to try to accomplish their goal. Sometimes it’s a fundamental thing by the player. There’s always a different [reason]. Sometimes the [one] guy got the best of the other guy. So, all those things. The defensive coach got the best of the offensive coach.

That’s why I’m saying it’s never just one thing. We can’t say that this is the ultimate team game when things are going [well], and then when they’re not going good after a loss, it’s on one person. It’s an ultimate team game. I mean, that’s the nature of this game. That’s why I love this game and I’m so passionate about this game because I love being a part of a team and I love just the comradery of a team. That’s what I want you to take away from this the most: when it’s going [well] and it’s all about the team, that doesn’t switch when it’s not going as planned and we assign blame to one person. It’s always still all about the team.

Q. Did WR Xavier Gipson make a mistake by fielding the ball where he fielded it? And piggyback off what Jeff Neiburg just asked, on the cover penalty, it’s something we see in games all the time. How do they happen? Do you coach the receiver to– Can he say to the official, ‘Am I good?’ I mean, I see that at other levels on the sideline. But can he look at the official and say, ‘Hey, am I good?’ and get an answer to that? (Bob Brookover)

Nick Sirianni: You’re saying on the pre-snap one?

Q. Yeah, the pre-snap cover. (Bob Brookover)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, those officials do a good job of helping out and you always want to be able to check with them.

Q. How do they happen though? (Bob Brookover)

Nick Sirianni: You’re up there, you’re lined up and you’re far away from the guy. I think that ball was on the opposite hash, and you just miss that communication. Sometimes you’re getting up to the line of scrimmage late. Sometimes you think you know what you’re in and you don’t check. There are many different things that can happen there because you’re trying to get up and run a play and run it fast. As far as Xavier, I’ve got to do a better job there.

Obviously, we try to go through a lot of those things. We work a lot on plus 50 punts. When there’s a fumble or there’s a mental mistake or anything like that, I hope you guys understand that I’m going to put that more on me than anything because I take a lot of pride in that and that’s my job as the head coach. So that’s on me. Xavier’s trying to make a play. There’s a teachable moment with that, too, in that scenario, be able to let it go. But I put that on myself of I’ve got to do a better job of communicating and coaching it and being better there myself.

Q. When you guys score touchdowns on the first three drives and then none the rest of the game, there’s the perception from the outside, ‘Oh, they took their foot off the gas.’ Is that fair or unfair? (Bo Wulf)

Nick Sirianni: I mean, to go up 21 to nothing with- I think the next possession that we had was with five minutes left in the second quarter. You’re trying to do everything you can to go up 28 to nothing; you’re trying to do everything you can do to go up 35 to nothing. I felt like we were aggressive all game. Obviously, the execution and everything. The execution and the play calling were better in the first half than it was the rest of the time, the schemes and everything.

If you look at it, I think that we were still being aggressive to try to get as many points on the board as possible, especially playing against that team that we were playing. Really, you don’t start to think about taking your foot off the gas until you get into four-minute football. Four-minute football is played many different ways based off how many scores you’re up, how much time is left, how many timeouts are left. It’s called four-minute football for a reason. You don’t start [getting] into that until four minutes.

Now, sometimes that extends a little bit more into the fourth quarter depending on your lead. But again, some of those things that were getting us behind the sticks continued to bite us in the butt as the game continued and that stalled some of those drives. We needed to keep the pressure on in that game and that was what we were thinking. We needed to keep that pressure on in that game because any of those drives that stalled, you get points on any of those drives– touchdown, field goal, it’s a different game and we knew that. We were working hard to try to go up in those scenarios and keep our foot on the gas.

Q. I realize it’s a small sample size, but RB Tank Bigsby has been really productive in the opportunities he’s gotten relative to what RB Saquon Barkley has done. Do you chalk that up to just small sample size and is it possible we’ll see more of him in the coming weeks? (Mike Sielski)

Nick Sirianni: I love our running back room. You’ve got Saquon, you’ve got Tank, you’ve got [RB] Will [Shipley], you’ve got [RB] AJ [Dillon]. All guys that are capable starters throughout the NFL. Tank’s done a nice job with the carries that he’s had. Obviously, we always want to get Saquon the ball as much as we possibly can because we know what type of playmaker he is. But Tank’s doing a really nice job when he comes in and gives him a break. But make no mistake about it, we want to get Saquon the ball as much as we can because we know good things happen.

Obviously, our run game, we’ve got to continue to get it humming. But also, Saquon did some really good things with the ball in his hands in the pass game yesterday as well. So, always a plan. Again, you look at our game plan, it’s always going to start with [WR] A.J. [Brown], Saquon, [WR] DeVonta [Smith], [TE] Dallas [Goedert], all those guys and how many touches we can get them, but we also love the guys that we have behind them. We like to give Will touches; we like to give Tank touches. [WR] Jahan [Dotson] does a nice job when he gets his hands on the ball, and so we’ve got a lot of playmakers and we’ve got to find ways to make them go.