Nick Sirianni

Q. A couple of Januaries ago, you referred to former Eagles WR A.J. Brown as the best receiver this city’s ever seen. How disappointing is it for you that it ended in the way that it did considering how highly you thought of him? (Dave Uram)

Nick Sirianni: I would say there were a lot of good years here and [we’ve] done a lot of good things with A.J. here, two times in the Super Bowl. I think he was All Pro multiple times, Pro Bowl multiple times. I would say it was a good run. But really excited about that room that we have. [WR] DeVonta Smith has had a really good offseason, has had five good years of being an Eagle as well. Very, very productive, and excited that he’s going to get extra opportunities that he works so hard [for].

I’m really excited about [WR] Makai [Lemon] and where he is this offseason. Just his ability to catch the football, his toughness. I think that’s a great addition to that room. [WR Dontayvion] Tay Wicks, I think he has a very unique skillset of being able to get in and out of breaks and be really efficient at the line of scrimmage. For a guy that I’ve coached, he has some Keenan Allen to him and to his game. ‘Quise [WR Hollywood Brown] and [WR] Elijah [Moore], really been excited to coach those guys for a long time and they have unique skillsets. ‘Quise has great, great speed and excellent hands. Elijah just is so quick at the top of his route. Then [WRs] Darius Cooper and Johnny Wilson just have that ability to kind of be the dirty work guys that we’ve so valued in our offense.

I always value that in an offense, a receiver that can do some of the dirty work and then do some of the other things from that. So again, a lot of good things that have happened and then really excited about that room.

Q. Where did you weigh in and what was your input on the decision to trade him? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] and I discuss everything as you guys know, we talk through everything. Again, so many things that [A.J.] did that were good for our football team and always will wish him the best of luck. But like I said, really excited about the guys in that room and where we are, but this is a team game. To your question and just in every decision that I make and decisions that Howie makes, we talk to each other about it. What a good teammate that I have with Howie Roseman to be able to go to battle with.

That’s like that with everything. The offensive staff working together to come up with the best plan, the defensive staff working together to come up with the best plan. I think that’s what good organizations do. Obviously, the Philadelphia Eagles have been a good organization for a very long time and I’m very grateful and thankful to be a part of that.

Q. A.J. Brown said in an interview with Maria Taylor that he was comfortable being the one who has uncomfortable conversations with the team and other people. Do you think that’s important to have on your roster? Do you feel like that’s- (Brooks Kubena)

Nick Sirianni: I think that we have those conversations very consistently. I think that happens when you have a team that’s close. They’re able to do that. I kind of talked about when you get further along and you get successful teams, the Spurs, the Knicks, that common denominator, what they talk about is how close they are. That’s no secret.

When teams make it as far as we’ve made it, as teams make it as far into the championships of things, they talk about how close they are. You always seem to find that they talk about [that] because they’re close, they can hold each other accountable. Again, we have hard conversations in here every day. Practice is evaluated in front of everybody, not only as an offensive group or a defensive group, but as a team. We set that stage as coaches to say, ‘Hey, this is so important that we’re able to have these hard conversations.’

Then you have really good leaders on our football team that are able to do that. [QB] Jalen [Hurts], [RB] Saquon [Barkley], [T] Jordan [Mailata], [T] Lane [Johnson], [G] Landon [Dickerson], [LB] Zack [Baun], Q [CB Quinyon Mitchell], Coop [DB Cooper DeJean], [DT] Jalen [Carter] and [DT] Jordan [Davis] on the defensive side. But yeah, we have a good group of core guys that are able to have those conversations with each other. That’s been common since I’ve been here, starting with the leadership when I first got here with [former C] Jason Kelce and [former DT] Fletcher Cox and Lane Johnson and [DE] Brandon Graham. I think we’ve always had those leaders that have been able to do that. I think again, that’s a sign of a good team that you can have guys that are willing to tell the truth to each other, and we have to set that stage of telling the truth to each other as coaches with how we go about our daily business every single day.

Q. A lot has been made about QB Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown’s relationship. You’ve always stressed how important it is for teammates to be close. I was wondering as the head coach of the team, if their relationship from your perspective was ever a problem in managing the team and impacted on the field? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: No. Yes, relationships are so, so important. I think sometimes that can get misconstrued that everyone has to be best friends and that’s just not the case. There’s a lot of guys on a football team. There’s a lot of different personalities. What has to be understood is that everybody has a common goal. What also has to be understood is that everybody has a common goal that they need each other to accomplish. It’s like, ‘Yeah, we all want to win. Yeah, we all want to be All Pro. Yeah, we all want to our second, third contract,’ but you also, in that, need others to help you accomplish those things. There’s no other sport, in my opinion, out there that’s more obvious than in football.

Again, yeah, you strive to get to know each other. When we talk about coming together as a football team, how do you do that? Well, there’s no shortcut in the time that you spend with each other getting to know each other, what makes each other tick, why they do it, what they like to do, whatever it may be, you get that through shared hardships. Only part of that is like, ‘Hey, a little time–‘ But then part of it is you get that togetherness through shared hardships going through tough times together. Then the other part of that is you get that togetherness from trust that’s built from consistently doing what you’re supposed to do on a daily basis. ‘Man, I just trust that guy that he’s going to do the right things at all times.’

Relationships, togetherness sometimes look in the sense, at times, of, ‘Man, Landon was in Jordan’s wedding.’Sometimes it looks like that. And then sometimes it’s just, ‘Hey, this shared mission of the team.’ I think it can look a lot of different ways, but it is so important that we all understand that we have a shared mission and that we need each other to get to where we want to go. We need each other. Not in this sport can we do it alone.

If you want to do it alone, you’ve got to pick another sport. But I say to them, sometimes I feel bad because I love the sport of tennis, but I’m like, ‘Hey, this ain’t tennis and none of you are built to play tennis. A lot of you guys aren’t built– [K] Jake Elliott was built to play tennis, but a lot of you guys weren’t built to play tennis, so you can’t switch, so you need each other to get to where you want to go.’