Nick Sirianni

Q. As WR Makai Lemon works his way back, are there things you guys can do as coaches to help him catch up? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: Oh yeah. The extra meeting time, being able to go through some of that stuff. Even just in that time, too, you can walk through some things in the meeting room. Always mentally you’re doing everything you can do to help that. And then obviously too, you want to be in great shape. There’s things that you can do there as well as far as what he’s doing in the training room to make sure that he’s in as good of shape as he possibly can be when he steps back out on the field. All those things are thought about and we’re working through all those things right now.

Q. What was your assessment of the first day of practices? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: Good work, back and forth. Just like there’s back and forth in our practices when it’s us versus us. It was good back and forth yesterday. This is why– I just felt like these guys [are] a really well coached team with good players, a really successful team. That’s why you pick teams like this to go against. We really got good work and that’s what we were looking for. Can’t say enough about the Patriots and [Patriots Head] Coach [Mike] Vrabel and how good that practice was. We’re looking for another day to be able to go through that today.

Q. On that note, a lot has been made about whether you’ve won or lost practice. Do you guys evaluate that? How do you evaluate these two days? (Breland Moore)

Nick Sirianni: Just like we evaluate normal practices. You go through it and you’re making the corrections, you’re praising the good things, you’re making corrections to the things that need to be fixed and you’re looking for improvement on a daily basis throughout training camp. We don’t get too much into the win and loss of a joint practice. There’s a lot of different situations. We’re working on different scenarios. We’re working different flows of the game. It’s not truly a drive. We’re just looking for good work and to be able to correct and praise the things that went well.

Q. In some years you’ve had two teams you’ve gone against. This year, only one. What was the reason for that? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, this is the way it worked out this year. Thought we could get a good two days of work against, again, a team that is a good football team that’s well-coached. I just have a good working relationship with Coach Vrabel and appreciate him.

Q. QB Jalen Hurts was mentioning yesterday about maybe working on some details with the offense and more alignment and stuff like that. Where do you think it is overall with alignment and everything at this point in the preseason? (John Clark)

Nick Sirianni: Again, you’re just looking to stack days upon days and looking for progress in the things that we’re really focused on. Making sure that we’re all on the same page as far as our assignments, our effort, our fundamentals, our pre-snap penalties. So again, we’ve been making improvements there because you have no choice but to make improvements when you practice the way our guys do. They put everything into practice. We have good intensity at practice. I think it’s been a good progression and we’re continuing to look to get better.

Q. Your offense struggled against simulated pressures last year. What does the new offense do to address that? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: I’m not going to get too much into scheme, but you always are looking for– You want to try to put the guys in as many uncomfortable positions as you possibly can. You get that in practice, you get that in walkthrough, you get that going against different teams like we are right now. Again, you might think that you’re going to come out and see a certain defense, but we know that they game plan too. You’re trying to put yourself into as many unknowns as possible and play your rules with those unknowns and then make adjustments off of that.

I think it’s just so important at this time of year where you’re testing your rules versus every different look you can get. This is a great opportunity for us to just– You can do that in walkthroughs. You can do that in some periods where it’s an offensive emphasis or a defensive emphasis, which we do during training camp amongst each other. But this is a great opportunity for us to get some more unknowns when we go against another team.

Q. You and former Eagles WR A.J. Brown had a lot of success together. Was it weird practicing against him and did you get a chance to catch up with him? What was yesterday like for you? (Eliot Shorr-Parks)

Nick Sirianni: Just good to see all those guys. Good to see A.J., good to see [former Eagles DT] Milton [Williams], good to see [former Eagles LB] Christian Elliss and some of the guys there. I’ve been on a team with [Patriots TE] Hunter Henry, good to see him. You build relationships with guys and those relationships, when they’re strong, are lifelong relationships. It’s always good to see those guys. Obviously, we’ve had a ton of success together so it was good to see those guys yesterday.

Q. Sounds like OLB Jonathan Greenard is iffy for week one. Did he suffer a setback? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: I think he’s doing a nice job progressing. We’ll see where that is. We’ll see where that is as we get closer to it, but he’s working really hard to get himself back and doing the things that he needs to do and the things that he can control. I’m not ready to say that or where we are on any of that yet, except for the guys that aren’t out there practicing are working hard to get themselves back. We’ve got a great training staff and doctors and strength and conditioning staff that are working hard to make sure he’s ready when he can be.

Q. How much more value can you get from working your new offense against an opponent as opposed to going against yourself in training camp or even in the preseason game? (Martin Frank)

Nick Sirianni: I think it’s kind of what we talked about earlier in the sense of you’re trying to test your rules versus every different thing. In walkthroughs or in offensive emphasis or defensive emphasis periods, you can simulate. You can, ‘Hey, let’s get a nickel pressure on this or a safety pressure here or a line stunt here.’ In a practice like this, you’re getting some more of that that you haven’t seen on a daily basis or even stuff that you haven’t scripted into a daily basis. That’s always good because again, we want to make sure our job description to the players is extremely clear.

When you do job descriptions, it’s like, ‘Hey, here’s your assignment, but here’s what you have to do versus all these different looks.’ As we know, there’s so many different looks that a defense can throw at an offense and vice versa, offense can throw at a defense. You’re trying to prepare them for every scenario. Sometimes the answer is, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do this combination or make this call right here.’ Sometimes it’s, ‘Hey, we’ve got to check out of the play,’ but you want to put them in as many unknowns as possible so they’re handling those things second nature when it comes to the game. This is always beneficial.

Q. You guys have a new offensive coordinator this year, some other new coaches, which is not unusual for you. What’s that like as a head coach, just kind of every year, building a new staff and building a new offense? (Patriots Reporter)

Nick Sirianni: It’s the way of the NFL. I know [Rams Head] Coach [Sean] McVay goes through this a lot and I know [49ers Head] Coach [Kyle] Shanahan goes through this a lot, and we’ve had to go through this a lot. One thing that’s awesome is you get to meet and work with different people. That’s a great thing about football is it brings people together that you probably wouldn’t have ever met otherwise. You get to form these new relationships and everything like that, but there’s a lot of work obviously that goes into that as well of all the things that have to be taught and thought through.

And, ‘Hey, if you’re in this scenario’ — situational football especially of, ‘Hey, when we’re in this scenario, this is the kind of plan of attack of how we do things.’ It’s getting everybody on the same page in that manner of the game management portion of it. So it’s fun. It’s a long process, but it is a big part of the process that we’ve got to go through and it’s always fun going through it with new guys. Not only are they learning about kind of the way we attack in different ways offensively, defensively, but you’re also getting to learn how they’ve done it in the past. That’s great collaboration because sometimes you’re like, ‘Mm, I haven’t thought about it that way.’ You find the best path for the 2026 Eagles. Not, ‘Hey, what the ’25 Packers did or what the ’24 Eagles did, but what’s the best path for this team?’ With that comes growth. I always appreciate that. That’s this time of year and with new guys.

Q. Offensive Coordinator Sean Mannion said he was going to experiment up in the booth the next game. What are your perspectives on the pros and cons of that? (Brooks Kubena)

Nick Sirianni: Everybody’s a little different. I want to make sure that he has an opportunity to feel both things out. Again, some guys like to be up in the booth, some guys like to be on the field. Without getting too much into it, I always think it’s important to be able to have a direct line of communication to guys. He’s got coaches and we’ve got coaches that we trust to be on the field to be able to handle that. I know that’s always something that when guys call it on the field, they like to be down there to feel the flow of the game and the flow of the players.

On the other end, being up in the box, you can have a ton of papers out, thought processes that you might not be able to have on the field. Different view of the game, seeing different things. Obviously, the NFL’s made it very easy for the guy that’s in the box calling the play to be able to directly talk to the quarterback. That used to not be the case. I remember in 2010 I was talking to the quarterback, but Charlie Weiss was calling the plays from upstairs. They didn’t have that communication yet, so that’s not a thing anymore.

But benefits, there’s positives and negatives to both sides and it’s just weighing out what works best. There are so many different ways to do this. There are so many different ways to lead a football team. There are so many different ways to run an offense or a defense. There are so many different ways to work situational football and it’s about finding out what’s best and what works for you. I think young in my career, it’s like, ‘No, this is the only way to do it.’ That’s just not the way it is. There are so many different ways to do it. It’s being open and finding out the best way of how your team should go about it.

Q. I know obviously you grew up in the same hometown as Providence Head Basketball Coach Bryan Hodgson. What can you say about him as a person and how much are you looking forward — (Patriots Reporter)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, he was a little younger than me, so we didn’t know each other quite as much until we got into this coaching profession. It’s been fun following his career. Obviously, he’s a star of how fast he’s risen up the coaching ranks. Now that I’ve been able to follow him the last couple years, it’s always fun to watch another team when it comes to March Madness and to college basketball because I’m sure a big fan of that. But I’ve enjoyed getting to know him and obviously see the talent that he has as a coach. It’s been fun. He’s another guy I’m able to bounce ideas off of. He was able to sit in on some of our meetings and just being able to bounce some ideas. I’m always interested to see how basketball teams operate as opposed to football teams because there’s differences, but there’s things that we can learn from each other.

And yeah, rooting for them and for his success because obviously I think highly of him. But I still like Villanova basketball.

Q. The new rule with the challenge flag, are you going to keep it yourself? (Bo Wulf)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah. We had a quick discussion about it, but yeah, I’m definitely going to keep that because my direct communication upstairs, again, I don’t want to have a misstep or anything like that where — There’s times on the challenge flag from my perspective that–

I think back to 2022, Smitty [WR DeVonta Smith] catches a ball over his shoulder at Washington. We run a play fast and [former Commanders Head] Coach [Ron] Rivera throws the flag, but the ball is being snapped as he throws the flag. We actually beat the challenge. In my eyes, the way we need to do it, the way the Philadelphia Eagles are going to do it, is I just want that direct communication so if I have to get the flag out quick — I’m not saying my release is really quick. I’m not saying anything like that, but at least I can get that out quick. That’s just my feeling on it of what we’re going to do. I know sometimes it comes down to just little tenths of seconds to be able to get that flag out per the 2022 Washington game.

Q. In past years, you’ve noted a benefit of being away for a few days with the team. Are you guys doing anything during these days? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: These first two days obviously are all focused on practice and then we’ll be focusing on getting ready for the game. But naturally, yeah, guys will go out to eat together. Guys will spend time together. Coaches will spend time together. Coaches and players will spend time together. There’s a lot of time, too, where they’re just together, being together. I think one thing we talk an awful lot about when we talk about connection is you can form connection through adversity of tough practices, of adversity that you face as a football team together. You can grow connection through building trust on a daily basis, but there is no substitute for — You have to spend time. You can’t just form a connection without spending time with each other. There is no shortcut on that. It’s like, how do you gel a team quickly to come together?

Time is one of the most important things that we have here on this to be able to build a connection as a football team. This is just probably a more carved out time than they get because they’re not going back to the hotel or anything like that. You spend more time together in that. I always appreciate that about this portion of a joint practice.

Q. Speaking to WR DeVonta Smith earlier, how much of the offense are you unable to get to — (Brooks Kubena)

Nick Sirianni: We’re still getting to a lot of it. You’re still installing your base offense and still going through it. If a guy misses time in a season, you may pivot and shift, but the things that are your bread and butter, your base offense, you’re still going to work through. We’re working through that right now.

Q. From now until the start of the season, what do you need to see from WR Makai Lemon to trust him? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: Again, you just want to make sure that he’s — Just like all our guys. I talk a ton about making sure that we’re all on the same page. Everyone knows their job description. It’s building trust within that and it’s the fundamentals and all those different things. I wouldn’t say I have anything that’s a check mark or anything like that. You know when you know and there’s a feel to it, and I know he’s working like crazy to get back.

Q. For play calling that you’ve been planning for, where you know the play that you want to get to, that the quarterback presumably knows the play you want to get to. What’s that feeling like to get into it, to call it in those 25 seconds? Is it a little bit different when it’s exactly what you wanted? (Patriots Reporter)

Nick Sirianni: If I’m assessing your question right, we try to do some different things in training camp where we take the play clock down to put as much stress on us as we possibly can to push our operation as fast as we possibly can. It is just this perfect– everyone’s got to work together from coaches to players to get that communication in and to get — If you have a check on the play or anything like that, it’s about being all on the same page. It’s actually a pretty cool process of how many pieces and parts it takes to do their job so everybody can do their job, right? One person doesn’t do their job right in that particular case, and that’s 65 times plus a game, then it’s going to struggle.