NICK SIRIANNI: How y'all doing?
Q. When you put the staff together, one of the things you were asked about was the lack of a former head coach on the staff, somebody to bounce ideas off of. How has that played out?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think it's played out well. I trust the guys obviously mentally on the staff that I can bounce ideas off of them as well. We've all been around good coaches, too, that we were close with as well.
I do have a list of guys that I can call. Yeah, no secret, I was on the phone with Frank yesterday, I was on the phone with Frank the day before on the way home. I might have talked to him a little bit more this week than I talked to my wife.
Yeah, I feel really confident that I can call guys that I trust. You know what, I got a dad who was a coach and I got brothers who are coaches, too. I feel like I got a lot of good people in my corner.
Q. What kind of stuff do you and Frank talk about?
NICK SIRIANNI: Obviously I'm going to keep those a little bit more private. Anything, anything and everything. That's a guy I'm really close to. It's not just football. It's not just X's and O's. It's the communication with the team, leading the team, then just life in general as well.
Q. As far as game management goes, when you're in the guts of the game, obviously you're a play-caller. Things come up, timeouts, end of half, game. Might be a rules things. Do you have somebody specifically set to look at certain things, whether it is timeouts, challenges?
NICK SIRIANNI: I do. I do. I have a couple guys that are helping me out with that. But at the end of the day, everything I get is going to fall on me. That's my role as the head coach, that no matter what happens in the building, I'm going to lean on people that are experts in the things, but I know ultimately at the end of the day everything and every decision is on me.
Q. Are you comfortable saying who is responsible?
NICK SIRIANNI: No, because it's a group effort. I would just rather -- those questions about if anything happens in game, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that's my decisions. I have the final decision on all those things.
Yeah, I don't think anybody really needs to know that. We know who it is. All the responsibility is on me.
Q. Where do things stand with Brandon Brooks for Sunday?
NICK SIRIANNI: He'll be up and ready to go.
Q. McLeod?
NICK SIRIANNI: McLeod will be out.
Q. Dickerson?
NICK SIRIANNI: Dickerson will be out.
Q. How have those guys looked in practice this week?
NICK SIRIANNI: Really good. I've really been pleased with Landon. I'm getting to see Rodney even more since he's working on the scout team a little bit for us.
I'd just like to take a second to brag on Rodney. Every day I see more and more. From the day I got here till now, I see more and more why the guys have voted him a captain.
He is a team player, he's a good player. He just leads by example over and over and over again and he can be vocal when he needs to. It's been a great look for our offense this week because Rodney was running the defensive scout.
Q. Saturday night meetings, what is your approach to that? Are you the kind of coach who puts a lot of thought and preparation into what you say and present?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah. I've put a lot of thought into it. Just the way my mind works, I kind of think about every scenario we could be in, right? So I think about this first game and what's a good message for the first game.
I think about our first home game. This is what I did, this is what I've been doing for the last five years is getting ready for head coach, I got a chance to be a head coach. What you're going to say to a team before your first home game, what are you going to say to a team when you're on a winning streak, when you're on a losing streak. What are you going to say to a team when you're an underdog, when you're favored, right? Hostile environment. Guys banged up. Late in the year. I mean, the list goes on and on.
I'm kind of a nerd so I got to talk for all those things. I value Frank, too, because it was Saturday night with the offense, I was having a lot of these talks with the Colts, too, on these Saturday nights prepping for this time, too.
Yeah, I'm prepared for them. Whatever the message needs to be that week, I kind of try to figure that out and I've got a little story planned for it. I got a lot of stories, right?
Q. What's Focus Friday?
NICK SIRIANNI: Focus Friday. A lot of people say Fast Friday. I would like to think of it as Focus Friday.
My experiences, again, you look at the good teams you've been on, you look at the bad teams you've been on, the not-so-good teams you've been on. My experience is on Friday, I always think it starts with the coaches. You've been here working 6 to 10 every night, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., give or take, whatever it is. You do that Monday, you do that Tuesday, you do that Wednesday, you do that Thursday. Then Friday, like, I get to go home and see everybody, see everybody at a decent hour, pick the kids up from school this and that. There's a tendency to be (sighing). There you can't do that in this sport, right? You can't ever sigh. You have to be completely focused at the task at hand.
That was my message to them. That's going to be my message to them on Saturday, to be quiet honest with you. It's hey, what happened the play before? Good? Bad? Doesn't matter. We have to be completely focused at the task at hand.
Everything that we go through in training camp, everything we go through in practice is prepped for us to play in this game. I just look at it as a good opportunity to be now, be now, be now, be in the moment, dog mentality, be here right now. That's what Focus Friday is.
Q. Don't see a ton of DeVonta this summer. Do you have a pretty good feel for where he is from a comfort perspective and chemistry perspective?
NICK SIRIANNI: I do. I do, yeah. I feel good about where he is. I feel good about his fundamentals, his technique, his ability obviously. I feel good that him and Jalen have past history, past chemistry as well. I feel good about the chemistry between the quarterback and the wide receiver.
Q. Those messages and stories, do you run them by people first?
NICK SIRIANNI: Tyler, my assistant. He types them all up, PowerPoints them, makes them nice and neat. I kind of go through it with him.
Again, some of these stories I've been telling for a while, since they happened to me, whether it was high school, whether it was growing up. Some of the stories, yeah, might be about me. Some of the stories are about other people, whatever it is.
So, yeah, I kind of prep for it pretty good. So it's not like a public speaking class. But, yeah, I prep. Tyler is usually the one. I run it by Kevin Patullo, Jemel Singleton.
Q. (Question about meeting with Frank.)
NICK SIRIANNI: We started the first year like that. Frank and I started the first year like that. Not that we didn't love the flow, we just changed the flow, right? We did instead of the hour at the end, we kind of did it intertwined on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So I kind of like that better.
Sure, something might come up Saturday night, Shane and I will talk about. Even Sunday morning. That was kind of the thing, Sunday morning, hey, reminders here and there. I just got a little bit out of the habit, but we did start that way as well.
Q. You're so secluded here in this building with all the coaches and players from the start of training camp up through now. Is there value in having an outside voice?
NICK SIRIANNI: You're saying the advice I get from Frank?
Q. The conversations you have now.
NICK SIRIANNI: Gosh, I mean, I can't say enough good things about him. Shoot, I know the city can't either, right? You guys won a Super Bowl with him as offensive coordinator. He's like a big brother to me. Again, it's just not football things. It's super helpful to have that.
I think you ask anybody in life, to be able to talk through things, problems, good times, bad times, whatever, situations you're going through, everybody needs somebody like that. I'm just lucky that I have somebody like that in Frank.
Q. You talked about not getting home to see the family till Friday. What is the atmosphere in the house like now? Kids excited for the first game?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think my youngest, he doesn't know any better right now. My oldest is, yeah. My oldest is. He's excited about it. He's got a Jalen Hurts jersey. It's been hard to get him out of that jersey. He just started school. My wife has had to get him out of it a couple times to go to school. He's excited. Definitely my oldest son is the most excited at the family.
Q. Do you stress anything additional for road trips or for week one in your experience?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah. With road trips, again, it's the crowd noise that we practice with. I know you guys aren't there for team periods. You can probably hear it out here with the crowd noise going. Definitely different things. The communication you have to handle, this and that.
I think you always got to be ready in game one, more hands on deck ready to go just because I feel really confident with where we are from a conditioning standpoint, very excited with Ted Rath and his staff of the plan that we've had to get our guys ready to go.
But still it's still it's a game that they're playing more plays than they have. It's going to be hot, as we know. My experience is, hey, more hands on deck ready to go that first game. Even if it's five plays, you got a role. If it's five plays, go play those five plays like you need to, be a star in your role.
Those are the two main things with the road, the noise, really handling that. Like I said, game one, just everybody being ready to play, even if you don't think you're going to.
Q. When you talk about that plan and obviously the pre-season, ramping up from a handful of snaps to a full game, is that kind of baked into your thought, like we know we're going to have to have a couple weeks?
NICK SIRIANNI: No, I really feel like, again, the way we've been practice, we started with whatever it was, five reps in a row, then we built to six, then we went to eight with the ones. Longer drives. Last week we were 12. This week we went back to 10.
I feel like we're ready as far as that goes. Really confident and committed to the plan that we use to get the guys ready. I've seen them ready to play all those plays and go.
But again, all hands on deck is just so you're ultimately ready in case someone needs a blow.
Q. Now that most of the hay is in the barn from a preparation standpoint, how are you feeling about your team?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I'm excited about this team. Again, I see a team that is really close together. I see a team that has continued to improve their fundamentals. I thought yesterday's practice particularly, I was watching third down on the offense, we were just really crisp in the fundamentals, in the pass game. Every play I was watching with the guys, I was like, This is exactly how you do it, this is exactly how you do it. That is a good feeling as a coach, right, to really feel like we're getting better.
Again, you're not ready for that this moment unless you've built to this moment. That's what we've been trying to do every day, build, build, build, build, build, continue to build through the season when other teams plateau, just try to have that mindset of getting better every day.
Q. On the defensive side, have you decided which players will be wearing a headset?
NICK SIRIANNI: We're still talking through that. Still got a little bit of time. They've been working with a couple different guys at practice. Still working through that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports