Philadelphia Eagles Media Conference

Monday, August 2, 2021

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Shane Steichen

Weekday Press Conference


SHANE STEICHEN: Excited to be here, excited to meet you guys and ready to get going.

Q. What have you seen so far from Jalen Hurts in the first few days?

SHANE STEICHEN: I've been really impressed with him. We all know this about him, this guy loves football and he's a tireless worker and wants to be best he can be. Watching him in practice, the plays he makes as we know he has big scrambling built but the way he throws the deep ball, he hit Devonta on this field and he hit back the other day down the sideline, too. To be able to throw the deep ball and hit guys in stride, that's an 80-yard touchdown instead of a six-yard gain. Really impressed with how he throws the deep ball right now.

Q. What have you seen from Zach as far as his engagement in the playbook?

SHANE STEICHEN: This guy is a pro. He's been a Pro Bowl player, really intelligent. He came right in and he's been rolling, so it's been good to see.

Q. Nick is new to Philadelphia. What should Philadelphia fans that watch him coach and approach football, what should they expect?

SHANE STEICHEN: Love of the game. He has so much passion for the game, and I know the city has passion, and he's going to bring that for this city. So we're excited about that.

Q. Curious to see what he would be like -- has it matched your expectation?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, it's been awesome. We he's been preparing for this moment. Obviously when we were young coaches a couple years ago, we still are young coaches, but just him getting this opportunity and the way he's taken it over and the way he runs the team meetings have been very impressive. He's done a very nice job, excited for him.

Q. What have you seen from Smith early in camp, especially because you guys started with so much red zone?

SHANE STEICHEN: The thing about Devonta, his releases off the line of scrimmage for a young player are super impressive. Like it's rare to see the way he gets off line of scrimmage. His first step and his jab to create that separation, I mean, that's the biggest thing I've seen along with his speed and his route running ability.

Q. How much of the offense is catered to Jalen? Do you have specific plays that are designed?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, we have a system. We have a system that we are installing right now and we are still going through that process and obviously we are still installing plays. We've had four days of practice, so we're still working through that right now installing our offense and seeing what he does well so we can run those plays on Sunday.

Q. When you look at the offense of what you have, what you're trying to install here and what you're trying to build here, is there enough room in there for let's say in Jalen, you want a guy, an athletic player like Jalen, something like you see with the Ravens what they have done with Lamar Jackson, is there enough in the offense to cater to that type of quarterback?

SHANE STEICHEN: We are going to try to do whatever we can to put our players in the best position to make plays. So we are going to cater the systems to what our players do best. I said that in the spring and I think that's the biggest thing is what do our guys do best and let's put them in position to make plays.

Q. Your personal exposure has mostly been to Rivers and obviously last year with Herbert. What's the adjustment for you when you go from a quarterback that style to a quarterback like Jalen?

SHANE STEICHEN: You just have to continue to study certain things around the league what guys do well with those guys that can move, and we're doing that right now and he's doing a nice job.

Q. What's your philosophy to even up the math on the run game versus not having him take those hits?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, no question, we have to protect the quarterback. Obviously his running ability is going to be big, and when he can run the football, but we have to protect the quarterback, too, at the same time, because we know if you take a lot of hits in this league it's hard to maintain your health, so we have to protect them at the same time.

Q. We see a lot of speed 21 out here. What do you like about that package and how will Jalen Hurts help that package be effective?

SHANE STEICHEN: All of our packages right now, A our personnel groups, we are installing our offense right now, so we are finding out what these guys do well, 21 stuff, whatever, 12, 11, four-wide, all that stuff. We want to look at all that and see what our guys do best so when it comes to Sunday we put them in the best position possible.

Q. The left tackle, what are you seeing from Andre and Jordan?

SHANE STEICHEN: I love both those guys' competitive nature. Coach preaches it all the time: Compete, compete, compete and these guys are doing that. Everyone is competing right now but love where both of those guys right now and coach stout has done a heck of a job coaching those guys.

Q. Are you rotating them?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, we rotate those guys, and everyone's rotating right now. Everyone's trying to win a job right now. It's all about competition, that's what we are trying to create and that's what we're doing.

Q. Seems like the defense has been ahead of the offense the first week; is that par for the course?

SHANE STEICHEN: I think when you start camp early and then you're if the red zone, obviously the windows are really tight down there you know what I mean. So I think we're continuing to grow and the defense has been doing a nice job and when you are going against the defense on Sundays, you're scouting those guys.

Right now we're installing our system right now and as we get going right, we'll continue to grow as an offense and continue to get better.

Q. Can you take us through that players' day off from a coach's perspective? What do you do when you hit that pause button?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, that's a great question. What we did is we went through and cleaned up some of the stuff from the week, right, continue to talk through things. And then obviously you work on stuff down the road in the future and stuff and continue to scout yourself and clean up some things that you have to get cleaned up.

Q. How much of a factor can Jalen Reagor be?

SHANE STEICHEN: He can be. He's a speed guy. I'm excited about Jalen. I'm excited about the whole group to be honest. These guys are very talented, so we have get everyone rolling and on the same page and we're excited about it.

Q. How about Travis, I'm sure you watched, he had an unusual season last year because he had that great stretch and not much else, are you curious what he would wring?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, he's been good. He's been really good. That big body receiver, any time you get that big body receiver out there wide, that helps you, right. Those one-on-one matchups, right to go up and get it, so that's what he brings and we're continuing to evaluate everybody and go from there.

Q. What's your impression of the depth of running backs?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, Boston has been doing a nice job, Kenny Gainwell, Kerryon, all those guys are competing and we're trying to give everyone an opportunity. We're giving everyone, splitting the reps up, Jamal is doing a heck of a job splitting up those guys and seeing what those guys do best.

Q. People are commenting on the instant chemistry between Devonta and Jalen? Does it make it easier?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, it does. When those guys have played together, you can see, when they have those conversations, those side conversations, hearing them talk, when they have been together, you can see it, so that's been fun to see.

Q. Nick described the QB meeting room. Is it typical to have the head coach in there for all those meetings?

SHANE STEICHEN: Yeah, if it's an offensive head coach, absolutely. Obviously his offense, my offense, it's very similar, the system, very similar system verbiage wise and it's good to have the head coach in there and everyone in there communicating and being on the same page.

To me that's the biggest thing is the communication and preparation part of it because in this league as we know, there's so much parity that the separation is in the preparation, if you don't prepare well you're not going to win on Sundays. That's the difference in this league, you have to have the preparation part of it and everyone has to be on the same page.

Q. Where does the terminology come from?

SHANE STEICHEN: We have kind of built it, like the route concepts and all that stuff has been -- but then Nick and himself when he was in Indy and I took over as the coordinator we talked when we were away from each other, what do you call, this let's make it system attic, and he missed that so when I came over from L.A., it's been the same verbiage, tweaks here and there but very similar.

Q. Did you feel like you have the same sort of talent here?

SHANE STEICHEN: I do. I do. I think in our offense, obviously the back is a big part of it, right, we scheme up stuff for the backs but also the backs do catch a lot of balls, and I think a lot of those happen organically. It's like hey, do I have this ball down the field? No, I'm throwing to the tailback for a ten-yard gain. That's a big part of what we want it do.

Q. Going back to Travis, last year dominant for a month and then not much of a factor; how do you tap into when he was at his best?

SHANE STEICHEN: I think it's just repetition, repetition and continue to talk to him about what we want to get done from a fundamental and a technique standpoint and Coach Sirianni and does a heck of a job and Aaron Moorehead do a heck of a job with the route detail and how we wanted to get things done.

DraftScripts by ASAP Sports ....

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
111027-1-1003 2021-08-02 14:10:00 GMT

ASAP sports

tech 129