Nick Sirianni
Q. What have you seen from this Chargers team on tape, both offensively and defensively? (Jason Dumas)
Nick Sirianni: They play with good fundamentals, play really hard, got good players, well-coached. A lot of respect for this team and the players and coaches that they have. I’ve worked with [Chargers Passing Game Coordinator] Marcus Brady before. I know how good of a coach he is. [Chargers Assistant Offensive Line Coach] Nick Hardwick played for us when I was with the Chargers. He was an outstanding football mind and an outstanding player. Obviously, [Chargers Head] Coach [Jim] Harbaugh has been a highly successful coach at every different area and every different place that he’s ever been, so I have a lot of respect for him as well.
Q. After the last game, QB Jalen Hurts mentioned that it’s getting harder and harder to run the push play. Do you agree with that and how do you go about trying to protect and save a play that’s been so useful for you guys? (Dave Zangaro)
Nick Sirianni: Just like how we do with anything. They adjust, you adjust, you try to make complements off of it, as many as you can, to keep them honest. All the different things that you do to help. I know it’s a unique play that gets a lot of attention and a lot of talk, but you handle it the very same way. You still teach the fundamentals the same way you would in an inside zone and the adjustments that come off of that and the things that the defense is doing and how you can combat that.
Q. What have you noticed from RB Saquon Barkley as he’s going through his season? Obviously, not having the numbers necessarily that he would want, but how he’s handling his business and going about trying to troubleshoot. (Tim McManus)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, he’s the best. He’s the same guy. I love consistency and he’s the same person every single day, week-in, week-out, year to year. I think that’s why his teammates, his coaches, everybody that comes in contact with him has the kind of respect that they have for him because his consistency doesn’t waiver based off of anything that happens on the field. It’s about his process and about how he goes about his work. You love that out of your players.
Q. In the episode of Hard Knocks, [RB Saquon Barkley] was quoted during practice joking that the sky’s falling on the outside. I was wondering what you learned during your time here about navigating the team when maybe from the outside there’s a lot of anger with losses and stuff like that. (Eliot Shorr-Parks)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, we get angry when we lose. There are so many different things that can grab your attention, and your job and your focus has to be on where you are. Really, to be quite frank, the best thing to do is be able to block everything out. I know that’s not necessarily the reality of our world with social media, with how much we have access to everything like that, but it is being able to block it out as much as you can. For me, I don’t focus on anything other than what’s happening in this building. It’s not good for me if I read. I say that in both when you’re winning and when you’re losing. It’s not good for me to read any of your tweets, any of a fan’s tweets. I don’t even know if it’s still called tweets, but any article in anything. I’m able to do that. I didn’t grow up in the social media world and so I’m able to do that and just stay locked in. But again, I also understand that it’s the world we live in, but if you let anything steal your focus or your joy or anything away from your attention of what you need to do that week, every little thing that takes your attention away is one less thing that you have to give towards the game that you’re playing.
There are obviously other things that we have responsibility for. Our families, our faith, our football. I mean, that’s how I live: faith, family, football. You try to stay locked into those things and truly be locked in on where you are. That’s my message consistently, and I know that if I’m not doing it, then how do I expect them to?
Q. With all the prep that goes into game day, the workflow, when you put in first and second down and such. Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo was saying yesterday that hasn’t changed over the mini-bye, but y’all are reviewing that. How much did that change over the offseason with the new coordinator and what goes into that review process? How would you evaluate that? (Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Your process is constantly tweaked. Now, you have the guts of it that you have, but then naturally things get tweaked. If my process is good, that doesn’t guarantee you anything, but it puts you in the best position to succeed each and every week. You’re constantly tweaking processes, ‘Oh man, they did this, and maybe we’ve never looked at that before. Okay, now you need to look at that now.’ I say that because the process actually grows as you continue on. It’s like something that happened to us when I was at the Chargers in 2015 or ’14, I won’t get into what it is, but it’s like, ‘Huh, maybe we’ve got to look at that every week,’ and then that gets added. Naturally through your course of your career as a coach, you have that process written out. You have it highly in-tuned, and naturally things tweak as you go through it but the guts of it stay pretty similar. The guts of it stay pretty similar, but there are constant tweaks.
Q. Just for example, this red zone situation this week was something that we might need to look at. You might change a day or a time or how much you evaluate into it. I’m just trying to make sense–(Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Maybe not a time, but there are definitely days that you go in and say, ‘Okay, I’m devoting eight hours to red zone,’ and then that day it takes eight and a half or nine or 10 or five. It just depends. Your schedule may be this, but we have the ability as coaches to stay later. We don’t have to punch a clock; we don’t get overtime for anything. Although, I did get overtime when I was at IUP as a football coach. That was nice. I don’t think they do that anymore, but there was something– anyway. But no, it just depends.
Q. When you’ve made changes late in the season, whether it be a coordinator change or even something small that may have benefited the team, how has that influenced when you looked at the team during this mini-bye about weighing whether to make a change and whether it’s worth it or not? (Jeff McLane)
Nick Sirianni: It’s our job whether it’s a win, a loss, a positive scenario, negative scenario, is always to learn from each and every scenario. That’s how constant growth happens. I wish I knew everything I knew today when I started in 2021, but naturally your experience, same as like with the game plan, your experiences dictate different things. You use all those experiences, you use all those things to help you make the best [decisions], but your sole focus is always going to be– At the heart of it, you can change philosophies, you can change different things. You can change schemes, you can change processes, but they all go hand in hand. You’re always trying to do what’s best for the football team.
Q. You had a report out yesterday that you guys put a claim in on NFL CB Darius Slay. Do you feel like the need to talk to any players after that? Maybe the perception could be, ‘Hey, they don’t think we’re good enough here.’ Do you ever feel the need to– (Bob Brookover)
Nick Sirianni: You always are in constant communication with your guys about everything, and one thing you’re always doing is correcting things that aren’t up to standard and you’re praising things that are up to standard. I think the guys have a real good feel of, obviously the communication, but they have a good feel for how we appreciate the things that they do because we emphasize those things. But communication’s really key.
Q. What perspective do you have of T Jordan Mailata the man, regarding the player side of it? (Zach Berman)
Nick Sirianni: Outstanding leader. A great desire to help others, a great desire to help his teammates. An infectious personality that you crave to be around. He’s just got a great personality. You just want to be around a guy like that. Highly talented man. I mean, it’s pretty amazing. His story is pretty amazing. Shoot, highly talented in everything that I feel like he tries. God has blessed him abundantly. We were just talking about [how] I’ve coached two players that have been on The Masked Singer; Jordan Mailata, and does anyone know the other person? We play him this week. [Chargers WR] Keenan Allen. I’ve been around these highly talented guys, not just in football. Again, the best way to say that is God has blessed Jordan abundantly in his life with all the talents that he’s been given, and just somebody you want to be around.
Q. You guys have been outscored by like 30 points in the fourth quarter. You’ve outscored your opponent in each of the first three quarters. Any thoughts on why the fourth quarters have not gone well? (Reuben Frank)
Nick Sirianni: You’re looking at the flow of the game of how that goes and all those different things. Again, some of these answers when you’re trying to fix things, it is hard. Some of the answers aren’t clear. You’ve got to dig and you’ve got to fight to find them. Sometimes they’re not abundantly– completely clear. [Jokingly.] I said abundantly for the first time ever, and now I’m putting it into areas where it doesn’t even fit. But no, it’s just being consistent as coaches and as players throughout the entire game. I never feel like when we’ve had a lead that we’ve been conservative, and I haven’t felt the other way. We [are] crazy to catch up when we’ve been behind or tied or anything.
So, it’s just a consistency from coaching. It’s just a consistency from playing, the execution, and just trying to put [it] together. Our goal is to be playing our best football by the end of the year. You’re going to have ups; you’re going to have downs. Obviously, we’re on a two-game losing streak right now, and it’s just about getting back to that confidence and that consistency.
Q. When there is something like that happens with Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo, how do you handle that behind closed doors? (Pat Gallen)
Nick Sirianni: Everything I handle behind closed doors is behind closed doors. But at the end of the day, you just try to be there for people. [Former Colts Defensive Coordinator] Gus Bradley used to always say, ‘Give strength to the people that need it.’ I always thought that was really good. Pick up people that need it, and that’s your job as a leader to do that. That’s why the relationship portion of it is so important because there are ups and there are downs in relationships. That’s why ‘together’ is [one of our core values.] Tough, detailed, together.
Some of the closest relationships you have happen because of some of the negative things that you go through. I’ve said before, I am thankful for adversities because one, if you allow it, it helps you get better. If you don’t stay on the ground, you pick yourself up and you learn from those things, it helps you get better. Then the other thing is it brings people together. Adversity brings people together.
I have a tight-knit family that I grew up with as a kid with two loving parents and great older brothers that show me the way. But I think if you asked any of them, we’re close as a family because of the struggles that we had to go through with my dad having cancer. So, you always want to look at negative things– You always want to be there for guys, but then how you [can] use adversity to bring people closer together.