Sean Mannion

Q. Would you like to see QB Jalen Hurts run more? (Reuben Frank)

Sean Mannion: I think we’re always looking for ways to integrate him into the run game. Some of it’s dependent on the opponent and the fronts they’re giving us, the looks you’re getting. But like I’ve said in here before, it’s a unique trait that he has that makes him dangerous. Some of them are designed, some of them are kind of the off-schedule plays. I think he’s had a good feel for that in terms of when to take off and run. He had some big plays early in the year, first few weeks, of using his legs in the pass game, kind of those off-schedule scrambles. So, there’s a place for both of them. I think he’s found a nice balance of that.

Q. Was there something about this game where it wasn’t a bigger part of the plan? (Dave Zangaro)

Sean Mannion: No, I think each week presents a different challenge and we’re going to do whatever we can each week to go and win the game. We felt like this week we were a little bit more pass-oriented. Some of that is intentional. Some of it’s just how the game plays out and the adjustments you’re making in-game. We want to be an offense that is balanced and can attack you in the run game and the pass game. Then, within the game, within the week, the opponent that you’re facing, your personnel, there can be little tweaks along the way that lead to a different end result in terms of your run-pass balance.

Q. Did QB Jalen Hurts’ calf injury limit that? (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: I didn’t think so. No. I thought he was ready to play and performed well.

Q. How do you think C/G Jake Majors, C/G Willie Lampkin and T Markel Bell held up in their first, or I guess Markel’s second, but overall that young offensive line? (Cayden Steele)

Sean Mannion: I thought they got their feet underneath them. There were a couple plays early on where, like anyone — I’ve been in their shoes, your first NFL action, there’s a lot of emotion positively that goes into your first taste of that — But I thought really as the game went on, they got their feet underneath them. They communicated well. I mean, they played hard.

That’s one thing, and I say it every week, but this group really, really plays hard, especially Willie, Jake, Markel, those young guys. You can just see the ferocity they’re playing with out there. That’s what you appreciate about them. These are three young players that we have a ton of confidence in. They’re talented. They’re getting their first taste of real action. I think they’re going to keep getting better. We feel good about the depth of this group while we’re kind of weathering the storm through some of these injuries.

Q. The second half struggles, we talked about it in the past. When you look at it, are any themes developing from your standpoint of what needs to be adjusted? (John McMullen)

Sean Mannion: We’re looking at that hard each and every week as a staff, how to find our rhythm, find our footing in the second half. I thought we did a better job and there were some close calls that I think could have really — It was more about finishing those drives. I think we came out in the second half, had some third down conversions, had a close call on the deep shot to [WR Dontayvion] Wicks. I think there were some chances there that we just didn’t quite capitalize on. Ultimately as a staff, I’m looking every week to put ourselves in the best position possible leaving halftime to extend those drives. I think we’re closer. I know the result hasn’t been what we want or what we hold ourselves to as an offense, but I felt like we were getting closer in the second half. We really just have to finish some of those drives.

Q. Has the heavy use of the condensed formations contributed to the amount of unblocked rushers or the pressure you’ve seen? (Zach Berman)

Sean Mannion: It’s a balance. I think there are certain things just having lived in this system for a while that teams may try to do against it with condensed splits and different things like that, how you’re aligned. There are some things that are thematically happening throughout the league at large against that. Then, some of it is just execution for us as coaches, making sure we’re doing the best job possible to really teach the guys and train the guys for what those looks can be because, ultimately, it’s our job as coaches to detail all that up, to put them in the best position to succeed as possible.

Certainly, different teams attack you in different ways, and some of it’s specific to us, some of it’s specific to familiar schemes, and some of [them] are just league-wide trends that you see around the league. Everyone’s watching so much tape that people get ideas from everywhere.

Q. On the second down throw to WR Makai Lemon, before the field goal on the out pattern when he didn’t go out of bounds, was he coached to stay inbounds? (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: Our focus there was really just to advance the ball. They were in a cover zero look. With that comes some leverage issues where you’re inside. The primary focus there was [to] advance the ball to do our best to help the kick and then get us into the best play possible to do so and avoid a negative play. So, that was the outcome we had there. Obviously, he was caught on the outbreak right by the sideline, kind of got pushed out, but our primary focus with the call and with the execution of it was to advance the ball. With the look, that’s what ended up happening. We’re in an outbreak and he ends up getting pushed out.

Q. You think that he couldn’t have done anything to – (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: I felt like it was a bang-bang play right on the sideline. Again, we were focused on how we help the kick because that was the primary focus of what was happening.

Q. Can I just ask one more about that? Was he the first read on that play? (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: Yes.

Q. QB Jalen Hurts is a career 65% passer. He’s at like 57 change this year. What do you think that’s a product of? (Reuben Frank)

Sean Mannion: I don’t think it’s any one thing. I think across the board offensively, we want to keep pushing to be better and that’s in all phases. That’s run game, pass game. That’s us putting together the best plan possible each week. I think he is a naturally very accurate guy, so I’m confident that those numbers will continue to improve. His comfort level grows each and every week. Getting these live game reps week after week after week, he’s going to grow more and more comfortable. I think the good thing is he’s been making good decisions with the ball. Obviously, we had an uptick in our pass attempts last game and I thought he made good decisions with where the ball was supposed to go. I’m confident, because he is a naturally accurate passer, that those numbers will rise.

Q. In terms of setting protections, I believe you said before sometimes it could be the center, sometimes the quarterback, depending on the play or the scheme. Are you shifting that more towards QB Jalen Hurts given the turnover that you’ve had at the center position? (Tim McManus)

Sean Mannion: I think it’s always — like I said, not to get into the details of the scheme, I think it depends on the protection scheme in terms of what each different part of the protection unit controls in terms of the center or the quarterback. Without getting into that, I think the beauty of it is, with the turnover at the center position, they’re all very, very capable of handling that. So, I guess the short answer would be even with the changes up front, we’ve kept the continuity of who’s in charge of what in terms of the protection system.

Q. What were some of the issues with the run game this past game? And then is there any consideration of maybe using RB Carson Steele in a fullback role to lead block into a hole? (Ed Kracz)

Sean Mannion: Yeah, I’ll talk about both those things. Again, you go into each game thinking, ‘how are we going to win?’ Different teams present different challenges in terms of their personnel, in terms of their alignments. So, that plays a part in the number of attempts, and you’re always adjusting in terms of what you think will help us move the ball in the next series in terms of how you’re calling it, run and pass. I feel confident this group’s going to be able to move the ball. We had some nice runs earlier on in the run game. We just need to keep sustaining that. Then honestly, some of it’s not necessarily a negative. You feel better about some of the other calls you have on the sheet and you get to those.

Getting to Carson, he did a phenomenal job in the preseason. He’s wearing a ton of different hats with us out on the practice field, especially as we’re kind of weathering the storm through some of these injuries. He’s a versatile player who can do a lot of nice things for us. We’re looking to use all of our guys in every way possible. So, that’s certainly something we’re considering.

Q. Going back to the route to WR Makai Lemon, I understand that the goal is to advance the ball, and I understand he was pushed out of bounds, but why was it best in that situation for him to run an outbreaking route, just in general? (Olivia Reiner)

Sean Mannion: Not to get too far into the weeds of the scheme, but in cover zero, league-wide, typically you’re going to be fighting a battle of inside leverage. Sometimes, again, the most productive play to try to advance the ball means running away from that inside leverage. Now, different teams attack you different ways, but again, our primary focus in that moment was advancing the ball for the kick. When you’re fighting hard inside leverage, the best way to do that typically is an outbreaker. So, that’s kind of how that came to happen.

Q. When you’re calling plays when there’s a lot of game management involved for Head Coach Nick Sirianni and the clock, how does that dynamic work? (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: It’s been smooth. We’ve had a bunch of them honestly come up organically in practice. I think that’s something that obviously is a focal point for Nick. We practice it like crazy, where we’ll just call it a two-minute drive and let it play out. It’s not a scripted scenario, but it’s me standing back there with the walkie-talkie, I’m with Nick, exactly how it would be on game day where we’re monitoring the clock, we’re monitoring our timeout situation, advancing the ball, do we need a field goal? Do we need a touchdown? So, we’ve gotten a lot of good bank reps of that.

There’s been ones that have come up earlier in the year. We had a two-minute drive against Tennessee where we go right down to the wire. We almost had some kind of unique situational circumstances come up where we have a review. Is he inbounds, out of bounds? Throughout all of that, to get back to your original question, I think the communication has been great with me and Nick, the people up in the box. We’re talking through the situations; we’re monitoring the clock. That communication’s been smooth.

Q. As the guy in charge of the game management, is he telling you what type of plays to run? (Jeff McLane)

Sean Mannion: We talk through all those scenarios throughout the week. We have a ton of parameters and contingencies, so it’s not necessarily play type. We’re talking about the different scenarios, and then as you can tell, there are a lot of different variables, but we map those out throughout the week in terms of what we want to do. So in the moment, it’s not discussion in terms of the specific play, it’s more [of] what kind of group of parameters does our call sheet call for in that setting, I guess. We map these out ahead of time.

Q. [Regarding the Tush Push.] (Brooks Kubena)

Sean Mannion: It was something that was on the call sheet. We had the short yardage look. Each team attacks short yardage differently. I think the other thing is we felt like we could get ourselves into an optimum look in short yardage by staying in the gun. We had a downhill run play. We need to execute it better.

I have the utmost confidence [in] whomever is in there, that they’re going to be able to execute a short yardage run, a short yardage pass, a tush push. If I didn’t have confidence, it wouldn’t end up on the sheet. But the tush push is absolutely still a part of what we believe in. We felt like in that short yardage situation with the yardage to gain, it being a full yard there and then with the characteristics of their defense, we felt like the best play possible was an inside zone from the gun.

Q. I guess the day-to-day grind. How’s the job going so far? How are you adjusting to it? How is it different from what you might have expected? (Zach Berman)

Sean Mannion: I know we’re fighting tooth and nail every day to get the results that I know we can get, the results I know we want. The thing with the work part of it is it really is — that’s the part you love. You love coming in here every day, working your tail off with your staff, with your players, working as a unit to try to achieve the best result possible. I know we’re still fighting for what we want that to look like, but my enthusiasm, my enjoyment with that process has not waned in the slightest. It’s been a blast. There are new challenges every day, whether it be managing injuries or whether it be managing a practice plan or traveling overseas, how does that adjust our offensive meeting schedule? But that honestly is the enjoyable part. That’s why you love getting into coaching is you get to work with other great coaches, get to work with a phenomenal group of players that work their butts off, they’re coachable, they want to win, they want to get better.

It’s a new challenge every day in this role, but it’s everything I hoped it would be and it’s been a blast. I am really confident that if we keep attacking each day with the right mindset, with a high level of enthusiasm, with a will to just get better bit by bit, day by day, we are going to get the results that we’re after.

Q. What’s the primary stat that you’re looking at that sort of represents the area that needs the most improvement for you guys to get to where you want to get to? (Tim McManus)

Sean Mannion: It’s hard to boil it down to just one. There are a lot of different metrics you can look at, and I think some of it [is that] you attack a different thing each week. Early on, week one or two, we were struggling to stay on schedule. So, first and second down efficiency was something that was a major focal point. Then obviously a couple weeks ago, we weren’t as good as we wanted to be on third down. So, then third down conversion percentage, that’s a metric we want to attack. It can be a little bit of a moving target. You obviously want to be good in as many different areas as you can be, but your primary focus, I’d say it shifts sometimes from one to the next because there are a lot of different things that you can look at, whether it be explosive play rate, efficiency, third down percentage, so on and so forth.

I think we’ve done a good job of addressing things as we’ve seen them. We got better at first and second down efficiency. We were better on third down last week than we were the week before. Again, I think ultimately it all goes back to, ‘Can we make incremental improvements with our fundamentals offensively with what we’re doing schematically?’ I think all of those metrics will rise.

Q. When it comes to managing injuries, I mean obviously you don’t have RB Saquon Barkley, you don’t have WR DeVonta Smith. How difficult is it to design plays or run the offense without having those two guys in there? (Martin Frank)

Sean Mannion: I think it all goes back to putting all of your players in what you feel is the best position for them to be successful. Saquon is a unique talent. That’s indisputable, right? So, there are things that he can do that there’s a very, very, very short list of people on the planet that can do. The beauty of it is I do feel really confident in our depth. [RB] Tank [Bigsby] going out due to injury, but he’s a really, really quality backup running back in this league. So, there may be some things that change when Saquon goes out and Tank goes in, but the nice thing is with the depth that we have at that position, just as an example, it’s not as many as you might expect because of the depth of our roster, the confidence we have in those guys. So, there’s tweaks here and there that come up with different injuries, whether it be at the running back position, receiver position, O-line, but in large, the confidence that we have in our group makes it where that’s easier to manage than you may think.