Nick Sirianni
Q. Is CB James Bradberry out of concussion protocol? (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: [To Senior Vice President, Communications Bob Lange] We’re not allowed to comment on all that, right?
BOB LANGE: We’ll get you the injury report later.
Q. The game two years ago against the Bucs and Buccaneers Head Coach Todd Bowles’ defense, what can you take out of that and how much have you seen growth with yourself and QB Jalen Hurts? (John Clark)
NICK SIRIANNI: Completely different. You always look at the last time you played an opponent. Always. Because you want to see how they defended you and how they played their defenses there, how much has changed, all those different things. So that’s always in your routine weekly to-do no matter who we’re playing, is to study that old game.
But a completely different team on both sides, right? There are new players, new schemes. I know that I have major respect for a Todd Bowles coached defense. They’re always really well-coached. He provides a lot of issues, and he’s been doing it for a very long time, and he does a good job adapting to who he has and letting them play the way they need to play.
Again, you look at the tape from ten years ago to five years ago, it looks different because he adapts to who he has. Major respect to him. But, yeah, you look at it because that’s part of your process of going through and studying. Again, like I said, different teams both sides of the ball.
Q. Is there a motivational factor at all that you can play with that? I know some of the coaches talked about QB Jalen Hurts in particular not being able to read the defense, got caught, is that something you use at all? (E.J. Smith)
NICK SIRIANNI: Our greatest motivation is not wanting to let each other down. There will be other things. There are always good stories to tell and all that, but we are a team. Our greatest motivation is not to let each other down.
That will be our motivation and that’s always going to be our motivation here.
Q. Two years ago when you were coming off that Thursday game against the Bucs, you used that time to really look at the offense and come up with some changes. Obviously, you’re 2-0, things aren’t as dire, but the offense hasn’t been clicking, especially the pass offense as much. Do you look at it that way, or is it too early to even try to think of? (Jeff McLane)
NICK SIRIANNI: It’s pretty early, but obviously you still go through that routine. Again, your process, your process, your process. So, we went through the same process as if the Thursday night game was played on week 15. It just happened to be on week two, so less sample size to look from.
That process remained the same. We went through the same things. And you might not get as many answers I guess to the test because the sample size is low, but we definitely went through that same process.
Q. What does it say about your team and the talent on offense that people are picking apart your offense and saying you guys need a ton of work and you are sitting here at 2-0? (Jamie Apody)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, our job is to get better every single day, so that by each week — our job is to get better today, better tomorrow, better the next day, so on Monday night we have a chance to go 1-0.
And that’s all we can focus on. Let’s be honest, nobody in the NFL is playing the best that they’re going to play right now in the year. It’s a build, it’s a climb, it’s a process.
We understand everybody is going to have opinions, and we just have to focus on ourselves. We have to focus on getting better every day. It’s really as boring and monotonous as that. Just put your head down, go to work, block out noise if you’re somebody that gets affected by that. Block it out, don’t listen to it, and really just focus on – the outside world is always going to have expectations. You guys are allowed to look into the future. That’s your right in the media and that’s your right as fans to look into the future and say, ‘well, if we’re playing like this in eight weeks from now, oh, my God, it’s going to…’
Our job is to get better every day and that is it, and it’s hard. It’s way easier said than done, but it’s a mindset that we feel like we have to have. Our job is to get better today so we can play the football we know we can play and we need to play.
Q. Thursday for RB D’Andre Swift was a bit of an outlier in his career in terms of touches and carries. Is that sustainable for him, or do you have to have him on more of a pitch count? (Dave Zangaro)
NICK SIRIANNI: We’re going to ride the hot hand. Do I think it’s sustainable? Shoot, his body is ready to go. I don’t ever want to put an expectation on anybody. If he’s got the hot hand on Monday night, we’ll keep rolling with him.
We feel really good about the work he puts in to make sure his body is right. It’s hard not to — running the ball like that, give it to him 35 times. It’s hard not to do that.
Q. With WR DeVonta Smith and WR A.J. Brown, how do you find their personalities bounce off each in the meeting room, behind the scenes, how they mesh, and how they make each other better? (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: I love to watch their growth as friends, right? Teammates and friends. I think they both respect the heck out of each other and they’re helping each other get better.
That’s what you want. You have two guys that have done this at a very high level and are able to help each other out of getting better. When you watch a tape on receiver, you can put on whoever — trying to think of somebody not playing anymore – [former NFL WR] Andre Johnson clip and say, ‘look what he did right here.’
They have this ability to say, ‘hey, what were you thinking right there?’ They’re sitting right next to each other. To be able to say, ‘hey, why did you do that right there, DeVonta?’ ‘Why did you do this right there, A.J.?’ And they’re able to get each other better because they’re not only watching each other do it, but they also can sit there and talk about it.
I really like their relationship. I think that’s pretty special.
Q. I want to circle back to that playoff game against Tampa. As you watch the film, where have you seen the most growth from QB Jalen Hurts? (Zach Berman)
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, I mean, that was a long time ago. That film was a long time ago. We watched it in the sense of ‘what did Todd do against us?’ ‘What are some of the personnels?’ Things like that.
I’m not really evaluating it like that, to be quite honest with you. I appreciate the question. It’s a good storyline and everything. We know we’re different, we know they’re different. We watch it more for scheme and stuff like that at this particular point.
Q. Going back you your expectation talk, you said it was easier said than done sometimes, put that aside for certain guys. C Jason Kelce mentioned the temperature of the team this morning is a little bit on edge. Do you think that’s a good thing or bad thing? (John McMullen)
NICK SIRIANNI: You’re never complacent. You always want to be in that stage if you think you’re doing things — even if you’re playing to our standard of being really good, you always want to get better from that and you never want to be complacent, because this league can humble you very quickly.
So, I think just more about that in the sense of we know we’ve got work to do. We know we’ve got to get better everywhere, all phases, offense, defense, special teams, coaching. We have to just get better. I think that’s just the reality of what the NFL is.
Q. The history of the NFL says the Super Bowl loser is not the same next year. I can give you all sorts of numbers, I’m sure you’ve seen them. What have you noticed, if anything, that are challenges coming off that? Because there is only one team in 28 years that got back. What challenges have you seen? (Howard Eskin)
NICK SIRIANNI: I think just expectations of some of that stuff. Listen, are we going to be playing the same football we played on February 12th last year right now? No, we’re not. Nobody is. We’re on this climb. We’re starting back from the beginning. So, I think that there are expectations, and the thing we did best last year was take it one day at a time, one game at a time, everything. Little bits at a time. Little bits at a time.
It’s a hard mindset to have because you want to have the expectations. So, I think that that’s what I’ve noticed is just — and it’s not necessarily the expectations of us, it’s expectations of the outside world.
All we can focus on is us in this building, getting better every single day. I know it sounds like, ‘oh, my God, this guy is going to say get better every single day.’ Yeah, I am because you can’t allow your mind — our goal right now, our goal right now [on] September 21st is not to win the Super Bowl, is not to win the division, is not to think about whoever we play next. Our goal right now, again, is to focus on what we can control. And that’s getting better today, going out here and having a great walk-through, and then having a great practice and great meetings right after that so we put ourselves in position to go 1-0.
I don’t know if it sounds cliche to anybody, but – ‘their goal is not to win the Super Bowl?’ That’s not at all what I’m saying. Our goal is to get better, and if we can do that gradually every single day with this team, I’ll put my chips where they lie, and we’ll see what happens.
Q. You mentioned the small sample size of looking back so far on the two games. For two new coordinators, how beneficial was it for them to go back and kind of reevaluate how they called these games? (Scott Grayson)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, any time you have the ability to be on a long week and have a little bit of a mini bye, that’s beneficial. Not only for the way you’re analyzing and evaluating plays, but also for the coordinators of how they call it.
Had a lot of discussions on everything and those guys have done a good job of self-evaluating themselves. I think that’s really important, to have self-awareness and self-evaluation of what has been working for you and what hasn’t.
I do that as a head coach, and I know they did that as coordinators. Obviously very beneficial any time you have that little mini break.