Nick Sirianni

Q. What’s been your message to the rookies and tryout players as they go along and get acclimated to the NFL experience? (Chris Franklin)
NICK SIRIANNI: What we talked about is just the introduction of core values. Yesterday they introduced themselves to each other, our coaches introduced themselves, where things lie in the building.
So, kind of some things that just are necessary to go over. But the biggest thing of yesterday’s message was about our core values and how we live them. What they are, why they are important and how we accomplish them.
We went over connect, compete, accountability, football IQ and fundamentals yesterday, and today was setting the tone of how we practice. The details of how we practice, where to stand, how to go from period to period, how you treat the quarterback when you’re out there as a defensive player, what the requirement is of finishing.
For everything that we do, we want to paint a picture of exactly what we want. I talk about this a lot of how we get better every day. We are highly detailed in meetings. We are full speed to the snap in walk through and high intensity at practice. When you are high detail in meetings, you have to set the standard in everything that you do. That’s not only the plays that they run and the fundamentals that they run the plays with, but also how you practice.
That was a big meeting this morning. Message is just some of the things that we start off with.

Q. What stood out about LB Nolan Smith? (Josh Tolentino)
NICK SIRIANNI: Well, only been on the field with him for an hour here and walk through. I’m excited that he’s here. I think some of the things, probably Nolan has taken notes just like everybody else and getting the lay of the land just like everybody else.
So more of the things that I would say that stuck out with Nolan are things that we found out about him when he came here for his 30 visit and just who he is as a person. Excited that he’s here and excited to work with a lot of these guys that are here right now.

Q. This is your third one of these. Have you sort of learned anything from the first two? When you’re planning, do you tweak anything? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: We are constantly trying to perfect the process. The process isn’t always something that is constantly changing. Our job, again, as coaches and what we say is high, high detail in meetings and if you’re going to have high detail in meetings you have to know exactly what you’ve done in meetings prior, right. What did you do at rookie camp last year and how did we get rookie camp better.
So yeah, that’s standard operating procedure every time. Coaches, here is what’s required of you in rookie mini-camp, here is what we need from you and here is what we said we needed. After, we say what could we have done better and that’s an ongoing process.
So throughout everything that we do, not just rookie mini-camp, you’re constantly tweaking the process. Are you viewing pretty much the skeleton of what you’re doing, yes, but there are tweaks here and there and that’s through every process that we have, whether that’s a bye week or a Monday night game or a Thursday night game or whether it’s a, whatever it is, we are just constantly trying to improve the process.
So, a lot of it is similar but there are some differences and we feel like those differences, we are doing the process better.

Q. Your staff is obviously different than it was then. So how much has that changed, the flow of things and what’s the working relationship? (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: I’ve got to teach them the exact same thing that is required of every coach. It’s just kind of starting again but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t do that the first two years, right. To say that Shane [Steichen] would have remembered exactly what we did in the rookie mini-camp and my requirements of Shane from one year to the next year, it’s my job to remind him.
So, it’s the same thing here. While I’m reminding [Eagles Offensive Coordinator] Brian Johnson of what the rookie mini-camp things are and the different things that we do, I’m also teaching this to somebody new on staff like [Eagles Defensive Coordinator] Sean Desai. It’s again just being very clear, high detail in meetings.
I say that a lot and you guys hear me say that a lot but it is, it’s just completely setting the standard of every little detail of how you want it, right and that’s just not in plays. But again, it’s how we practice, it’s how I want the coaches to run practice and different things like that, so it’s every portion of the building.

Q. Do you have a rookie mini-camp folder and have to remind yourself of that stuff– (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: I’m kind of crazy about to-do lists. You can ask some of the coaches. I’ve got a page with everything on there and it’s saying everything that I need to do, and I go through it. It’s organized how I want it to be. So hey, boom, I’m going to talk to the coordinators about this; I’m going to talk to this here. Oh, here are the things we wanted to do better from last year, so it works like that.
It’s in the video system, too. Like video clips I want them to see that I think are important for them to see there and you just build that. I’ve been doing that my whole career with whatever meeting I’m in charge of running or whatever programs we do, and it’s again, perfect the process.

Q. How is DT Jalen Carter’s conditioning level? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: What you’ll see when we are going out there is that we are trying to get everybody back into shape, of football playing shape.
These guys have been in hotels. They have been on 30 visits. They have been getting ready for pro days. They have been getting ready for the Combine. So, to say any of them are in really good football shape and they are ready to play a game tomorrow, I would say that’s inaccurate. None of those guys are.
So today was not about finding out what their conditioning level was. Today was about going out there and my coaching points to our coaches were, listen, their bodies are not ready to play yet. This is all about protecting the players while still getting ready to play.
But I’ve been in camps before, rookie mini-camps where you try to go all out and guys get dinged. Guys get hurt. I’ve made that mistake before.
This was more about I want the individual drills tempo’ed because I know they are not in good shape right now, so it would be foolish to push them to do something their body is not ready to do yet and to just, you know, to tempo those guys and do a little bit less reps.
Nobody out there is in the shape that they need to be in, but we are working in that direction. He looks good. He looked good out there today, and so but like I said, today wasn’t about finding out who was ready conditioning-wise because to be quite frank, none of them are.

Q. With Jalen Carter specifically, he did mention that he was not in the condition he wanted to be for his pro day. Do you sense the commitment to that in the NFL? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: I told them straight up, things that I will — we obviously went over our rules, right, our team rules. And one of those team rules is be on time, and another one of those rules is be the weight you’re supposed to be and those are non-negotiable for me, and they know that and we’ll just keep that standard as we go.
But yeah, I sense that he wants to be the best pro he can be, and not every place — again, I don’t know exactly. I have no idea what each program says the person’s supposed to weigh, right, or sometimes, programs, even within the NFL don’t track that or they track it, but they don’t say, you have to weigh this amount; we do.
So that’s just new to here. We will get him to what he’s supposed to play at, and I have no doubt in my mind he’ll do whatever he needs to do to be the player he needs to be.

Q. How much of a believer are you when the veterans are here, pairing them up with a rookie, somebody like DT Fletcher Cox with DT Jalen Carter or LB Haason Reddick with LB Nolan Smith, do you believe in that and how important is that to their development? (Martin Frank)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, we have these unbelievable veteran leaders on our team, and we are constantly pushing these guys to connect. Sometimes we’ll give them a bunch of ideas how to connect. The other day when we talked to the team about this, I showed the guys singing the Christmas album together or guys playing video games together or whatever it is. And the point of it is, hey, guys, find ways to connect. And so that’s always the message.
What I say to the young guys and what I say to not even young guys but other guys that are here is how do you become the best in the world at what you do? Well, you study the fundamentals of people, and the tapes that we have, these teach tapes that we have, sometimes it’s somebody that’s not in the building because maybe it’s a Keenan Allen clip from San Diego, right, but what happens when it’s a [WR] DeVonta Smith clip? Well you get to go and ask DeVonta Smith exactly what he was thinking on that route. That’s an unbelievable thing to have.
I know a ton of our teach tapes have Fletcher Cox on it, [T] Lane Johnson on it, [DE] Brandon Graham on it, [C] Jason Kelce on it, and these players that are young or new or even the ones like [G] Landon [Dickerson] who have been here, they can ask, they can look over in their seat and say, hey, help me out with this, right. We can show them on tape and now they have the actual access to the player that we’re learning from.
And so yeah, a huge believer in that obviously. Huge believer in connecting. I’ve said this many times, the veteran leadership that we have on this team is unbelievable, and it really just is great for player development all the way throughout the building.

Q. You signed three draft picks yesterday, how much, if at all, does that mean coming into a rookie mini-camp like this to have three guys under contract already? (Ed Kracz)
NICK SIRIANNI: I actually don’t even know to be quite honest with you. All the guys practiced today. I was excited about that. I’m excited that they signed because I know that it could get way down the road and you’d rather have them sign early than not sign but I guess I don’t pay too much attention to that until I have to.

Q. Can you talk about S Sydney Brown’s personality traits and why he was a red star player for you guys? What’s it been like getting to know him the last week and how does that manifest itself? (EJ Smith)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yesterday was the first time they were in here, and so it’s only been a day, and really, there was a lot of me talking and setting the standard. I’ve gotten to know Sydney throughout the draft process a little bit. But I look forward to the next day or two to be able to dive a little deeper into that and talk to him a little bit more.
So, to say I have a good answer for you right now, I don’t, because I’m not there yet with him. But excited; I know he has a really interesting story. I actually had all our coaches watch a story – [Eagles SVP, Communications] Bob [Lange] texted the story on NFL Network of his story and what an unbelievable story, the things he’s had to overcome to get to where he is here, and I look forward to talking to him about that.

Q. What are some things you have learned about Eagles Defensive Coordinator Sean Desai since you hired him? (Bo Wulf)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, just how detailed and organized he is and how not only is he detailed, but how he gets the rest of his staff detailed. I look forward to seeing how that also translates to the players because I’m seeing everyone speaking the same language. Just really excited. He’s just really detailed, organized, and obviously a good leader to be able to get everybody else detailed and organized.

Q. Your response about DT Jalen Carter’s conditioning doesn’t exactly ring as reassuring given he’s coming off a pro day where he wasn’t able to finish — (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: We didn’t do gassers or anything like that. I could tell you that I know exactly how somebody’s conditioning is after that. I know none of them are in good enough shape to go out there and have a full practice. That’s why practice was cut down today. That’s why we took time in between a rep. If we would have had a 40 — now, he didn’t do seven-on-seven today, but we did, but I made those guys take a minute in between seven-on-seven reps, if we would have had a 40-second clock out there, we would have had a penalty every single time because I know none of them are ready to practice the exact intensity that we are used to practicing in.
Basically, I’m generalizing our entire team of saying they are not in good enough shape yet. This is not a fault on him; this is everybody out there and quite frankly this is everybody out there practicing this weekend in rookie mini-camp, none of these guys are ready to go as far as ready to go in practice. But continue.

Q. With Jalen Carter, what’s your level of concern with his level of conditioning at this point in time? (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: None.

Q. It’s a short window, but how does a tryout player open the eyes of Nick Sirianni? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: Good question. First of all, it’s going into each drill and watching them in the drill and listen, this is what we do, right. Every player that I watch this off-season, right, I watch their pro day and I watch their tape. And so now I’m able to do it in person, right, and watch them in person.
So you go drill to drill to watch it and you make a note, oh, that guy, I liked what I just saw right there and I’m not going to give any of you guys that name of who I think it was or not, but you go and you dot that and then you come back and now I can go watch it again with the coaches. But now I’ll go up there with the coaches and we’ll rewatch it because obviously I couldn’t watch every drill. We’ll rewatch one-on-ones and seven-on-sevens.
What we’ll try to do with some of the tryout guys is we had a little extra session just for the guys that we knew that it could be only two days that we get to see them. So, we had a little extra session at the end to make sure that we don’t miss on an Adam Thielen, right. I think he was a tryout guy, at least in my little notebook, I have it, and I said, don’t miss Adam Thielen, right, and I know there’s only one of him.
But you say that to them and you try to do everything you do so that you don’t miss that, and so that’s just that extra period that we’ll evaluate but it is just watching the body movements and how they are going about — because right now, again this is general, too. Any question anybody asks me about conditioning on a player or any question they ask me about mental of a player, that’s not where we are right now. We are truly studying the body movements of the player and seeing — knowing the things we know about him and seeing how we can use him and stuff like that. It will be fun to watch this tape tonight. It will be fun to watch the Sixers game tonight. But it will really be fun to watch this tape today and evaluate these guys even more.

Q. How is the transition going for Brian Johnson as he transitions to the OC role? What are some of the biggest challenges? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, now you’re not just with one position, you’re in charge of the entire group. What I know is it’s not just when you’re presenting to the team, it’s not just the offensive coordinator presenting to the team. Brian had plenty of chances to do that and kind of interview on the fly with us last year.
But it’s truly being intentional about the relationships with every player, and again, when guys are in those leadership roles, they show you something that they — they already showed you that they could do that so it wasn’t like Brian was just talking to the quarterbacks last year. I would always see Brian talking to every guy but that’s what it is is really being intentional about your relationship with every guy.
I think that’s the biggest thing because especially when you’re with a quarterback group, you’re really close with those guys because there’s not many of them and now it’s just being able to connect with everybody. But like I said, that’s what I saw him do that all last year, so I know that won’t be a big transition for him.

Q. Anything you can learn from watching the Sixers, whether the way they play or the way they coach? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: It’s been exciting. Listen, I’m just a fan. I’m really rooting for them. I really like the team. I like the guys on the team. I like the way they play. I like the way they are coached, everything.
I’m sitting there as a fan watching it, and it’s cool to watch it with your kids; that they are into it now, and watching my son wear a Harden jersey to school or chatting MVP for Embid. I’m looking forward to just watching them and the run that they are making, and I wish them the best of luck. It will be really cool if they keep rolling.