Nick Sirianni

Q. You’ve had a long history with Titans Offensive Coordinator Brian Daboll. You’ve considered him a mentor, got to speak to him this offseason. What does he bring at that offensive coordinator position that can make it difficult? (John McMullen)

Nick Sirianni: He’s a really good football coach. Really into being able to attack people on the offensive side of the ball, fundamentals, accountability. Those would be some main things that I took from him, knowledge of the defense with his defensive background. I’ve always had a lot of respect for him, and I just think he’s a heck of a coach.

Q. What led to the decision to leave a day early and what benefit was that in Tampa Bay last year? (Zach Berman)

Nick Sirianni: You are constantly tweaking your schedules just to constantly improve your process. When your process is not right, it makes it harder to go about it. Now, when your process is right and you’re constantly working on it, it doesn’t guarantee anything. It just gives you what you believe is the best chance to win. We have [gone] through a progression with it. Thinking back to early in the season, I kind of look at that when the schedule comes out: What games are going to be at 1 o’clock in heat environments? That could be here in Philadelphia as well. How do we want to handle that at that particular time? What have we done in the past and studying different things?

It’s just a monotonous review of your process over and over and over again with everything that you can imagine, every schedule that you can imagine, every detail you can imagine. This is what we felt like was best. You try not to let outcomes play into that. You really want to see how everybody’s doing in the game and everything like that because the ball can bounce one way or the other in this crazy game at times. You’re just trying to look through the process and see if everybody was ready to play that game. We felt like, ‘Hey, when we went to Tampa last year and did this with the addition of other things that we changed in our schedule as well,’ it benefited us, and that’s why we decided to do that again.

Q. What your biggest concerns about the Titans’ defense going into this? (Ed Kracz)

Nick Sirianni: I think that you’ve seen [Titans Head Coach Robert] Saleh coach extremely good defenses over the past decade of the NFL. I have a lot of respect for him and [Titans Defensive Coordinator] Coach [Gus] Bradley. I just think the world of those two guys, particularly Coach Bradley because I’ve worked with him, so I’ve got a ton of respect for those guys. They always get their guys to play hard, play with good fundamentals. Then you look at the — starting with [Titans DT Jeffrey] Simmons — the guys that they have on that team. Obviously, he’s a phenomenal football player. We’re going to have to know where he is at all times in this football game and make sure — we’ve got good football players, too. Those are some things that you think about before you go in and play this game.

Q. Taking this offense on the road for the first time, what’s sort of top of mind for you in terms of making sure that there’s a clean operation? (Tim McManus)

Nick Sirianni: Same thing. Again, we don’t go into these games without practicing our communication within the noise, whether that’s in practice — That’s been in practice, obviously, through the last month or so. You just expect the same. To go out there and expect something different that you haven’t practiced and you haven’t emphasized, I think would be crazy. But we’ve practiced and emphasized our operation, our pre-snap penalties throughout camp. Anytime there’s a pre-snap penalty, whether that’s a delay of game, whether that’s an illegal formation, whether that’s a false start — things that I believe take no talent — those are on every day of the team meeting and then also shown in the offensive meetings.

We’ve emphasized it. And it’s not just about emphasizing; it’s about taking the right steps to fix those things. I believe our guys have worked extremely hard on quarterback-center exchange, even more so than we’ve done in the past and [Offensive Coordinator] Sean [Mannion]’s brought that, which has been awesome. Even more time devoted towards that. We’re seeing those benefits and now we’ve got to go out and do it.

Q. How do you keep WR Makai Lemon’s confidence high when the statistical production wasn’t there in his first game? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: Just again, put your head down and work and not worry about what anybody else is saying or whatever anybody else is thinking, knowing that this is the way this happens in this league, that you’re going to have highs, you’re going to have lows, you’re going to have games where you have 100 yards, you’re going to have games where you don’t have any yards or, in this particular case, -5 yards. It’s about staying focused on yourself and being in the moment of where you are and not letting anything distract you from your daily work and your process throughout the week, which is easier said than done with social media and all those different things. Our job is to stay laser focused. That’s going to be the same thing that he needs to do when he has a big game, too.

It’s the opposite reaction of, ‘Hey man, you had a really good game.’ Whether you win or whether you lose, or whether you have 100 yards or whether you have -5 yards, the next week’s going to require the exact same work to get yourself ready to play as the week prior to it. It’s a long season. I’ve said to these guys, ‘Can you be mentally tough enough to handle the highs and the lows of a season?’ You need to be mentally tough enough to handle the highs and lows of the season because they’re there and they’re going to happen and there’s no avoiding it. I think that’s a great challenge. I also know that I believe deep in my heart, and I know that our guys on our football team do as well, that if you allow adversity to be beneficial for you, it will be.

Q. If S Drew Mukuba can’t play, what’s your confidence level in DB Michael Carter at safety from the work he’s done this summer? (Martin Frank)

Nick Sirianni: Obviously, Michael’s played a lot of football, and I have a ton of confidence in him. He has great versatility to be able to play multiple positions, and he’s worked his butt off to be ready to play that safety position. We’ll see how that goes. My confidence level in the group itself is very high. Drew’s made a ton of plays and [S] Marcus [Epps] has made a ton of plays. When I say that, I know Drew hasn’t played a ton of football games, but I mean in practice and in games that he’s been able to play. And then Michael’s played a lot of plays. I’ve got a ton of confidence in that group.

Q. How has the upgrade with TE Johnny Mundt as a blocker helped you in terms of your two tight end sets? (Jeff McLane)

Nick Sirianni: It’s this offense too of the things that are required. Every offense has different job descriptions of what’s required from the players and what’s the main things there. We’ve always thought that your tight end has to be a two-way player as far as in the run game and in the pass game, it’s even more so here. The entire group has done a better job and has improved here in their run blocking on everything. Johnny just brings that dirty work mentality to our team. I look at it [as] if I’m comparing it to a receiver or something, it’s like he’s the [WR] Darius Cooper or the [former Eagles WR] Zach Pascal of the tight end group.

You look at a play from last week; we get around the edge and Johnny does a great job of setting the edge on that and reaching the edge and getting displacement there to allow us to hit around the edge. Those will be the things that we need to continue to have happen, not just on the outside zone play, but if you’re running an inside zone play, you can’t get creased on the inside. He brings great strength, toughness, instincts, [which] I think obviously are a very underrated part of this game that sometimes aren’t seen. He has really good instincts of how to get the block accomplished. With guys like that, you’d love to be able to reward them with some touches and some catches, and we’ll see how that goes throughout the season.