Eagles Press Conferences: What Nick Sirianni Said, What Nick Sirianni Meant

Question: Last night some of the offensive players were expressing some frustration about the passing offense. When that happens, what’s your process for hearing that and then funneling that in a positive way?

What Nick Sirianni Said: Sure. When you guys asked me yesterday what I thought, normally I’ve always got to watch the tape. But I think it’s no secret that we weren’t up to our standard in that area yesterday. So it’s just going back to work.

What I do know – I love that guys care. They care about how they perform, they care about us meeting our standard, and that just leads into getting better. My only thought on that is, hey, we’re going to get to work today, which we already did, and watch the tape with them and make the corrections.

What Nick Sirianni Meant: We’re 11-2. We’re in the playoffs. We still have a chance to grab home-field advantage. And we have this guy Saquon Barkley — maybe you heard of him? — who has 1,623 rushing yards and is on pace to break the single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards set by Eric Dickerson in 1984. Next question.

Question: When you watch the tape, it almost looks like WR A.J. Brown is open every time, all on slant plays, and he shows his frustration. Do you ever have to say to him, ‘Yeah, I see what you’re doing, and I can understand your frustration, but this is what it is.’ Did you ever have that conversation with them?

What Nick Sirianni Said: We talk about it. We talk about everything. I’d like to think I’m really close with A.J., and he’d probably say the same thing. And so you talk about everything. A.J. is a great football player, and we always are trying to get the ball in his hands. There’s no doubt because he’s a great player. It doesn’t always work as simple or as easy as that.

I think what’s important that we talk about always is controlling the things that you can control, and what A.J. can control is going out there and doing a good job of beating the man over the top of him when he’s running a route and blocking the guy he’s supposed to when he’s in the run game. A.J.’s missed, what, three games and has 800-plus yards? So, he’s making a big contribution.

What Nick Sirianni Meant: This is a weird locker room. A.J. already berated me about this for 20 minutes in my office. Then, after I finally convinced him not to demand a trade, Jalen popped his head in and started lecturing me about “keeping the main thing the main thing” and “staying away from the rat poison” and “I had a purpose before anyone had an opinion.” I was like, man, I had a purpose before you were born.

Question: Switching to the defense – DT Jalen Carter – obviously you guys are not as deep as you were at the edge rush position. How much of a game factor has DT Jalen Carter become, and how much do you think opposing offenses have to plan for him in order to try to be effective?

What Nick Sirianni Said: Yeah, they have to account for him every play, just like we have to account for really good players on their defense every play. So I think you’re seeing that. You’re seeing teams do that. And I think Jalen has done a good job of being disruptive at that first level of the defense.

He’s fast. He’s quick. He’s strong. He gets to the football. And so, he has been disruptive. He’s playing good ball right now and I know when you see that as an offensive coach, you have to do what you need to do to help to make sure you account for him on every play.

What Nick Sirianni Meant: Jalen Carter is the Randy Orton of the NFL. He’s a bad, bad, bad man. Like, if you forget to account for him on just one play, boom, RKO. Game over.

Question: On the RPOs when QB Jalen Hurts is pressured and he knows that there’s an eligible man downfield, last week against Baltimore, we saw him throw it away, you take the penalty. This week, he took the sack. What’s the coaching point on that?

What Nick Sirianni Said: I’ll keep all our coaching points in house there. I always want to answer your question, I feel like I’ve done this to you a couple times and I apologize – but our job is to go through and make sure that we coached it the right way, and that we are coaching it the right way, and that we coach it the right way moving forward.

What Nick Sirianni Meant: We’re on to Pittsburgh … and, hopefully, Bill Belichick is on to North Carolina.