Nick Sirianni
Q. I’m sure you saw the WR A.J. Brown post on social media, where he quoted scripture, and said “If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw, don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way”. Is it to your understanding that AJ still wants to be here? (Tim McManus)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah. Obviously, AJ is very important to this football team. I know he wants to contribute. I know he wants to contribute and do the things that he’s capable of doing. But yeah, he wants to contribute to these wins, and he’s had a couple games where he hasn’t been able to, and for different reasons of why we haven’t in these games. But I question nothing about his desire to play great football, his desire to be a good teammate, his desire to be here.
Q. How do you go about addressing a situation like that with A.J. Brown? Is it something you talk to him about last night after it happened? Did you talk to him today? Have you talked to him and what was that conversation like? (Jeff Neiburg)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, obviously talked to him. Somebody I talk to on a daily basis. I try to reach out to all our guys on a daily basis. I won’t get into any private conversations that we have with any players about any topic. That’s sacred relationship between the head coach and players. We’ll always keep that private, but always in constant communication with all these guys.
Q. On the field, after you got to watch the film first half versus second half, we’ve talked in the past about manufacturing touches. You don’t really want to force it at times, but what is your responsibility? What is Offensive Coordinator Kevin Patullo’s responsibility when it is going a little bit sour? Three and out three and out three and out to sort of maybe kickstart that thing? (John McMullen)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, we’re responsible. I’m responsible for everything that happens on that field—offense, defense, special teams. That’s the job of a head coach, is to be responsible for all that. As coaches, you want to put them in positions to succeed for different reasons. We were really successful in the first half, played a really good first half, and wasn’t as successful as second half. Had some negative plays, had some calls we want back, had some plays we’ll want back as players and coaches. But I think when we talk about our efficiency, we want to hit explosives, we want to be efficient, we want to protect the football. We had some plays that moved backwards, right? For different reasons. So, again was kind of some of the things that happened in the previous game that we moved backwards a little bit on first and second down, which makes it tough on third down. So again, need to be explosive, need to protect the football, and need to be efficient. There were times for different reasons, like I said, we weren’t that in that second half.
Q. In a more general sense, when there are some frustrations in the locker room, what have you learned in your role as a head coach about the best way to deal with those? (Dave Zangaro)
Nick Sirianni: Open, honest communication, and I think it starts with the relationship that you build with the guys before anything. But it’s always about being open and being honest, and it’s always about the relationship. So again, I know he wants to contribute to what we’re doing out there, especially when we had the second half that we had. Again, like I said, never question the teammate. Never question the effort that he plays with, and the player that he is, and the person that he is.
Q. In the second half, the defense came up with some real big stops at key moments, gave up a lot of yards, but tough in the red zone. A couple of takeaways. What is it about this defense and these guys that enable them to come up with those clutch types of plays at key moments in games and how important is that? (Reuben Frank)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, obviously anytime you win the turnover battle. That’s a big deal and we were able to force some turnovers yesterday, then you count the blocked punt, and then you also count the turnover on downs on fourth down stop. What I see with our defense is 11 guys just going as hard as they can flying to the football, right? We missed a couple more tackles than we’ve missed in the past yesterday, but what was so cool to see is those didn’t turn into explosives. Their teammate was right there for them right next to them in the swarm to make the tackle if we missed one. So that’s what really stands out is the relentless effort. The play that [LB] Jihaad [Campbell] has the interception on, I didn’t even notice it in the game until I saw it on film and looked at it on film. [S] Reed [Blankenship] gets a hand on that, Reed gets a hand on that and kind of makes it look like it wasn’t a great throw, and [Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB] Baker [Mayfield] was trying to put it over top Jihaad’s head and Reed gets a hand on that to allow Jihaad to [make the] play. So, it’s them playing together for each other and with relentless effort, which is what you want on defense, right? Just that relentless effort and we made some big plays and some critical moments. Obviously have things to clean up with some of the explosives that were hit, but when you’re playing that hard and for each other that good things happen.
Q. If I can follow up on the variations you have to the tush push, what made yesterday the right time to use those and how do you think it affects the way defenses play you going forward? (Zach Berman)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, hopefully you soften them up, right? You soften them up for the next time you run it. I won’t get into it schematically, just why we thought in that particular game or when or anything like that, obviously for you guys understand that. I appreciate you guys understanding that. But you hope that you soften it up for the next time that you run the play. That’s a good defense as we know with really good interior linemen, defensive linemen, linebackers, you name it. It was the right time yesterday for it. We probably had a couple more of those in ‘23 and ‘22 than we ran more than in ’24. I can think of a couple off the top of my head, that whether it was at Washington in ’23, or against the Giants in ‘22, that turned into some explosive plays as well. So, it was just the right time yesterday. [Offensive Coordinator] Kevin [Patullo] did a good job of calling those in those scenarios and the players did a great job of executing.
Q. With CB Quinyon Mitchell’s play yesterday. I’m just curious what you’ve seen as the season’s begun, some of the things behind the scenes that are matching with the play that’s showing up on Sunday? (Brooks Kubena)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, just a relentless guy who relentlessly works every day. You stay out after practice, he’s out there working his footwork, he’s out there working catches, he’s out there working his brakes and his ability to press and all his footwork that goes into playing defensive back. So it’s great when you see, and obviously he’s highly talented, so it’s great when you see that work, that daily grind show up because we’re a product of our habits and those habits are formed in practice and I think you get top level preparation by Q, not only in practice, but in pre and post practice.
Q. I was wondering if you’re seeing any kind of, I don’t know, common denominator in the way QB Jalen Hurts is playing both in the first half against the Rams and then in the second half yesterday against the Buccaneers. What kind of adjustments are those teams making to kind of limit his effectiveness? (Martin Frank)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, I think he’s been, again, really efficient. You look at it, he is in the top 10 in completion percentage. He’s in the top 10 of quarterback ratings and top 10 of QBR. All those things show how efficient that he is been. Obviously when you’re that efficient and you’re good on offense, you’re going to see people, you’re going to see different things from different teams and it is hard to say — sometimes it’s they did this, one team did this, the other team did this, just to try to slow us down. But I’ve just seen that consistency, efficient play and as far as what one half look like and what another half look like, we got to be coach more consistent. We got to play more consistent across the board, so we put together a full game. I look at our first four games this year, very similar to what our first four games were last year.
We’ve obviously played a very hard September schedule and coming out of September last year, it was a good opportunity for us to sit and say, ‘Hey, what do we do good? What are we not doing so good?’ And try to figure that out and get better from it and get better every day. Well, it’s the same thing here, its just we have a different record right now, and so we have to have that saying hunger, same humbleness that we had last year, this year. Not trying not to speak too much about different seasons, but that’s that first month of the season, you’re figuring some things out because at the end of the day, you want to continue to play better, better, better so you’re playing your best football at the end. A lot of things to clean up at every position offensively, defensively, special teams. That’s what today was about. Yesterday we enjoyed it, today was back to work, telling each other the truth in attempts to get better.
Q. Following up on that, both on QB Jalen Hurts and maybe figuring out who you guys are through the first four weeks. Is it possible for you to put more on Jalen on his shoulders in the offense? (Bo Wulf)
Nick Sirianni: I think Jalen’s capable of helping us win any way, that he’s proven to that for the past four years of his career. We can win with him playing a lot of different ways. That’s why he’s a special quarterback. Whether that’s something in the pass game or check game in his checks or in the run game or his run game checks or him actually running the ball, I think he’s proven that he can win multiple ways, which is why we’ve been able to win so many games. Have a ton of confidence in him and the things that he can do.
Q. You mentioned yesterday that you’d probably have a better answer on what kind of stalled out for the run game and especially in the second half, I guess, what did you see in your film review of the run game? (EJ Smith)
Nick Sirianni: Yeah, we had some hits, we had some misses, right? What happens sometimes on the misses is when it turns into a negative, it puts you behind. We had a little bit too many negatives yesterday, again for different reasons. It’s never just going to be, ‘oh, it was this, or, oh, it was that.’ This is why it’s the greatest team sport there is, there’s always different things pointing to why a play was successful or why a play wasn’t successful. But I think at the end of the day, we weren’t efficient enough and that’s going to be something that we we’ll do everything we can to make sure we’re playing efficient and in the run and the pass because we know when we do that, good things happen for our offense.