Nick Sirianni

Q. What went behind the decision to release P Arryn Siposs now, and what did you see out of P Braden Mann that gave you guys confidence to sign him? (Chris Franklin)

NICK SIRIANNI: First of all, we thought that Arryn did a good job in training camp and was growing, so we felt like we were ready to go into the season with Arryn in there.

After two weeks, we decided we wanted to make a change. Arryn has been a great teammate to his teammates. He’s been spot-on as a holder. Right now, at this particular time, we just thought what was in the best interest for the team was to move forward with Braden.

Obviously, Braden has tape out there that we paid a lot of attention to, which got him to where we brought him into punt. We liked his punts when he was here, and his holds and everything, so we were confident in the decision for that to happen now.

We have a little bit of a longer week to make sure the operation is clean, and so that’s why it is the way it is right now.

Q. CB Avonte Maddox, can you confirm he tore his pec? Now that you lost him at least for a while and CB Zech McPhearson back in the preseason, how comfortable are you with that slot position? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: We feel like we have good options in-house to be able to move forward. That’s why we cross-train people, whether that’s a corner, a safety, whether that’s the guys that play nickel.

So, we feel like we have good in-house options there. Listen, are we going to miss Avonte? Of course we are. He’s a great football player who has made a lot of plays here. I thought he was playing really good football, really being aggressive. He caused that fumble and then made some really good plays on the perimeter.

So, we’ll miss his contributions as a teammate and on the field, but we like some of our options. This is the benefit of [Executive Vice President/General Manager] Howie [Roseman] and his staff building depth. That is our job as coaches to make sure we have options with the depth that we have, and we feel comfortable with that.

No doubt we’ll miss Avonte while he’s gone.

Q. Can you confirm the torn pec? Is it a torn pec? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: We can get that information to you. He’s going to be out for a little bit.

Q. As you take a look back at the first two games, what have some of the issues been with the passing offense and what do you need to do to get them corrected? (Dave Zangaro)

NICK SIRIANNI: Some of the things that happen is, again, you’re taking what the defense gives you in different ways there. Speaking of the last game, to have 450 yards offense and still moving the football, is just a little bit different way of how you had to move the football.

We’re not in a panic mode or anything like that. Have the pass numbers been down? Yeah. Does the defense play into that? Of course it does. Fortunately for us — and not everybody has this luxury — but fortunately for us we’re able to win on the ground and we are able to win in the air, and so you are able to balance off what the defense does.

I thought [Offensive Coordinator] Brian [Johnson] and the offensive staff did a phenomenal job of saying, ‘hey, okay, they’re packing this in the middle of the field right here and keeping all these guys high and having this three-down front. All right, cool. You guys are doing that. We’ll do what we have to do to win the game.’

So, [QB] Jalen [Hurts] was, what? 18 of 23 in that game so he was completing a high percentage of his passes. It was just, hey, we had 48 runs to 23 passes. Well, of course your run stats are going to look different than pass stats and it’s going to appear that your pass stats may be down. Was our first game our best game passing the football? No. But there were some similarities in that game plan as well.

Again, we are talking about a two-game sample size. We’re just going to keep doing what we need to do to put the guys in position to succeed, and that’s our job as coaches. We know for sure that we have the right guys in this building to go out and execute against the defenses that we see.

Q. How are RB Kenny Gainwell, CB James Bradberry and S Reed Blankenship doing as far as progressing through their respective injuries, and how likely is it they will play this week against Tampa? (Olivia Reiner)

NICK SIRIANNI: I’m never going to put a timeline on anybody. They’re not in the building today, but we feel like everyone has a chance to play this week against Tampa.

We’ll see though. It’s a little bit too early for me to say, again, with them being out of the building today. I’ll have more information once they get back in. We feel good everyone has a chance to play this week.

With James, I’m unable to comment on that with him being in the concussion protocol.

Q. After that last RB D’Andre Swift touchdown, I think a little more than four minutes to go, you’re up 12, why not go for two there? (Jimmy Kempski)

NICK SIRIANNI: As I looked at that, I should have. I should have gone for two there. I didn’t do a good enough job there. I didn’t go through my process of what I do in that one. That’s before any drive in the fourth quarter, before the drive even starts, to have that conversation, ‘hey, this is a two-point conversion opportunity or this is not.’

Again, just missed a step in my process. I’ll be better at that, so mistake on my part. You’re a little late to ask me that question. My brother asked me that question right after the game why I didn’t do that, so I had to answer that tough question with him.

And again, that’s me, and so we’re all growing at this particular time, regardless. So, would we love for us to be playing our best football right now? Yes. But that’s unrealistic and that always starts with me. It’s always going to start with me, so error on my decision there.

Q. With the way defenses have been playing you these first two games, obviously we saw WR A.J. Brown was upset this past week and TE Dallas Goedert didn’t get any catches the first week. Is that something these guys are going to have to adjust to, and do you have to talk to them about maybe this week might not be your week and everything like that? Is that something you guys have to talk through and adjust to? (Martin Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: I always talk to them about that before the season starts. Regardless of how the defense plays, I know it could look like that week in, week out. It’s going look like that when you have so many good players on your roster like that.

Again, it’s tough because you always want to get them involved, but like 23 pass attempts to 48 rushing attempts. So naturally — we completed 17 of them I think I said — so naturally somebody’s numbers are going to be a little bit low. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it goes. But I do believe that all these guys in this building genuinely love each other and genuinely are happy for each other’s success.

Do they want to contribute because they know they’re capable? Of course. Do sometimes frustrations run high because they’re not able to? Of course. Those are all part of it. I would say on a frustration scale — wasn’t able to know fully about it until after the game — but on the frustration scale of what I have seen between receivers and quarterbacks, or whatever, we’re talking about a two out of ten.

But, I get it. We have to have things to definitely talk about. In my opinion that’s what that was. That’s a two out of a ten. Yeah, you always talk to them about that. It’s not the best groups of individuals that win, it’s the best teams. Teams sacrifice for each other. That’s what happens with a team. Sometimes it’s one guy’s opportunity to pull the load as a team and sometimes it’s the other guy’s.

Again, our guys understand that because we have good guys on this football team.

Q. After the first two games, did you go back and evaluate the process that had RB Kenny Gainwell starting and overwhelmingly getting touches versus RB D’Andre Swift based upon what happened in the next game? Would RB D’Andre Swift have been the starter and gotten as many touches if RB Kenny Gainwell was active in that game? (Jeff McLane)

NICK SIRIANNI: In that particular one, we felt like that was the best decision that Kenny was going on that one. He had some nice early carries. Obviously, Kenny wasn’t able to go in the next one and D’Andre took it.

Like I said, this is going to be — depending on who gets the hot hand, that’s how it’s going to look. We know they are all capable of doing what they did and what they’ve done, so really excited about D’Andre and his ability of what he showed in the game. We’re going to continue to want him to touch the football.

We have just as much confidence in Kenny and [RB] Boston [Scott], and we have a lot of confidence in [RB] Rashaad [Penny], so we really like that room. That’s going to look different each week. Just like the A.J., [WR] DeVonta [Smith], Dallas, [WR] Quez [Watkins] thing is going to look different each week, that’s going to look different each week.

Like I said, just really excited about the way D’Andre played and looking forward to him continuing to play a big role in our offense.

Q. What stood out to you about CB James Bradberry in the slot during training camp and is he a realistic option as a potential replacement when you go to nickel? (Zach Berman)

NICK SIRIANNI: That’s kind of something I don’t want to say quite yet, obviously just because I think there is a mystery of unknown that their slot receivers will have to prepare for. I will say we feel like we have really good options there.

We’ve worked with many different guys, not just James, but many different guys right there. As bummed as I am for Avonte and for the team to lose Avonte, I’m excited for other guys to get an opportunity in there as well.

Again, bummed for Avonte though moving forward.

Q. What is your concern level about the number of sacks and where the breakdowns have been? (Reuben Frank)

NICK SIRIANNI: A sack is never just on one position group. You always go through and you break down, was this a product of the offensive line breakdown? Was it a product of a back missing a protection? Was it a mental error of a back missing a protection? Did the quarterback hold it for too long? Did a receiver have a wrong route discipline of what happened?

Early on in the season you want to play your best ball as quick as you possibly can, but you have to go through some ups and downs to make sure you’re playing your best ball when we get into October, November, December.

With those sacks, there has been a little bit on every group, right? Even though it appears like, ‘well, that was on [QB] Jalen [Hurts]’ or ‘that was on whoever,’ it could look completely different to the eyes of our coaches.

For instance, one of those sacks on the plus-35 this week, maybe it appeared like Jalen held the ball too long, but what happened on that play is we had a guy over the ball and then the other guy coming on a shallow. And the guy coming over on the shallow — he knows who it is and I don’t need to say it here — the guy coming over on the shallow didn’t get across the field quick enough and clouded the read for Jalen.

Again, our job is to make sure we fix it and not assign blame to anybody. Make sure we’re fixing it. What’s happening right now is we have had a little bit of each group. Like I said, it’s never on one group, but I am super confident in our group to fix that and our coaches to fix that and play better and get better.

Q. Looking ahead to next Monday night, you’ve spoken about this advantage before, but I am presuming there is going to be a lot of traveling Eagles fans to this game. When that happens, when there is a decent portion of the road crowd that is in favor of you, how much of an advantage do you think that is? (Dave Uram)

NICK SIRIANNI: I think there is a decent chance of that happening because it feels like it always happens for us on road games. That’s how much we love our fans and we appreciate our fans that, even when you play away, you have a big support there.

And so, yeah, that’s always great. I’ve been on the other side of that where you’re practicing crowd noise in anticipation of a certain team coming. The Eagles were always one of those certain teams you practiced crowd noise for when I was at other teams, whether that was the — it was only one team. Y’all can figure out what team that was.

So it is, we feel like it’s a big benefit. To the Eagles fans that live in Florida, we look forward to seeing you there and seeing the green and hearing the crowd noise. We get excited about that. Yeah, a big advantage for us that we have the best fans in the world that also travel well and also live in different areas that support us.

Q. With all the moving parts in the secondary, how would you say CB Mario Goodrich and CB Josh Jobe graded out against the Vikings? (E.J. Smith)

NICK SIRIANNI: I thought they did some nice things. Again, they’re coming in for the most extensive play they’ve had as professional football players. We were pleased with some of the things that they did. We all have things to improve, and they have things to improve.

Our confidence level is high with both of those guys, and we’re excited for their opportunities as we go. Not only on defense, but also on special teams. So again, we’re pleased with a lot of the things they did defensively.

Q. Just to follow up on the two-point conversion thing, curious if the mechanics are different this year than they were last year as far as you said you should have had it in your head before the drive started —  (Bo Wulf)

NICK SIRIANNI: No, that’s always on me and that’s always just checking my chart and then the flow of the game and everything like that before.

So, no, nothing different there as far as the operation. I made a lapse in my process that cost us an opportunity to go for two and go up 14.