Nick Sirianni
Q. Something just came out. Adam Schefter reported that CB Darius Slay had surgery, arthroscopic surgery, on his knee. I was wondering how do you guys move forward and what’s your plan at the corner back position? (Chris Franklin)
Q. Can you confirm it first? (Jeff McLane)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yes. What’s our plan? We’ve got the right guys in place.
Q. How long do you expect him to be out? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: We’ll see.
Q. When you say, ‘right guys,’ is it CB Kelee Ringo, is it CB Josh Jobe? Who? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: Got the right guys. Got the right guys.
Q. What’s your approach to the defensive side of the football? As a head coach, whose expertise is offensive, but you’ve mentioned in the past that you demand a few things. Has that changed at all? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, my job as the head coach is to make sure that the things I do demand are the ones that are going to get done. Again, I hired these guys to do a job, so there are just things I know offensively that are tough to deal with defensively. So that’s kind of my approach there, as I’ve told you guys.
Does it change? Yeah, everything is in a constant change. Everything is in a constant change. You can always change your schemes. You can always change your schedules. You’re always adjusting those things, right? You’re always adjusting those things to put the best product on the field.
The things that stay consistent are your culture, your attention to detail, connect, compete, accountability, football IQ, fundamentals. So, definitely there are things that change as we go.
And then, again, I say there’s things I demand but that changes based off of — because it comes down to the players and what they do well. When I say that, too, a lot of that is situationally and what things are a little bit more difficult for the offense to handle.
Q. Did you learn about CB Darius Slay’s injury and surgery early enough in the week to have a full week of prep without him? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yes.
Q. Right guard, is there anything you can share with us there? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I like the practice that [G/T] Tyler [Steen] and [G] Sua [Opeta] have had this week. We’ll see on [G/C] Cam [Jurgens]. He’s feeling better every day. He’s doing a good job of rehabbing.
Again, like the depth that we have at the offensive line. We’ve seen [T/G] Jack Driscoll come in at a critical time to play good football. Sua has done well in critical football. We won a big game with Tyler Steen — I think we’ve won with all these guys in the lineup, got the right guys in place and feel good and confident with those guys if Cam can’t go, but we’ll see with that.
Q. The fact that it’s a loud environment, you’re probably using a silent count, does that factor into who you pick there? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: Everything factors in. We’ve been practicing with noise all week. Obviously, we know how loud the environment is there. So, I actually just talked to a guy I used to work with and asked him how loud it was going to be, [Former NFL Coach and Player] Jim Zorn. What a great coach, a great player. He coached [Quarterbacks Coach] Alex Tanney and then I coached with him, and we said, you better not be the 12th man this week ringing that thing, because you got a relationship with us.
He said, it’s loud. It’s going to be loud. I don’t know if he is doing it or not. We know it’ll be loud. We’ll have even extra stuff out there to get one more work of practice.
So, if you’re outside and you hear the noise, it’ll be a little bit louder today. Everything goes into place with that, but we do feel good about all the guys handling the environment and the noise.