Q. I wanted to ask you about this group, you had ten guys play in their first NFL game on Sunday, eight were rookies, just wait this class seems to have a lot of maturity, this rookie class, doesn't seem like the moment is ever too big for them. What have you seen from them as a group as far as being ready, being prepared and doing the work and acting like veterans?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yes, you know, again, when we drafted these guys, the first thing we looked at obviously was talent.
The second thing we wanted to know was they love football, I've said this before, if they love football, if they have high character, right and they were tough, and these guys we felt like that was a common denominator of all these guys and my experience is if they have these things, they reach their ceiling, the first thing is talent and the other things they reach their ceiling.
I feel good about those guys because they have those things and all of them are good people and all are them are tough, all of them love ball and that's important in just the evaluation process. It's a tribute to Howie and his staff for finding those things out and getting that information. When you have guys like that, sometimes it feels like the moment isn't too big for those guys because they are mature enough to handle it.
Q. The video of the locker room --
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, because you always think he's quiet. You think he's more of a quiet guy initially, and he's nice, got a great personality but he's very serious about football and that's great. But that's what you want to see after a game. You work hard to get to that moment and I want him to feel great after a game like that and celebrate after that and crave to get that again, so it was good to see Devonte do that. Maybe I have to learn that dance and I'll do that next time.
Q. The Seahawks -- what did you learn from people here who knew him --
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, scheme is very similar to what those defenses are, the Seattles, the old Atlantas, the old Jacksonvilles, the last year's San Franciscos, there's a lot of guys that run this scheme and run it really well. Good, sound defense.
As far as Coach there, everybody in this building talks super highly of him and how good of a person he was and how smart he was and how hard of a worker he was. So surprise to me that he's a good coach as well. I have a lot of respect for him and the coaches in San Francisco.
Q. Kyle Shanahan, has he had influence on you and what makes him a good offensive designer?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think where Kyle Shanahan -- I don't know him personally, I know him to say hello but he has influence on me like any good coach has influence, you can see he's a good coach. The team plays with good fundamentals. It's, hey does your team play with good fundamentals and good scheme, to me that's a big part of how you're a good coach. That's where he's had influence on me is just scheme and the way his players play.
No secret how good of a football coaches. What's the second part of that question?
Q. What stands out about him as an offensive designer?
NICK SIRIANNI: He knows how to attack a defense. He knows the system really well. He knows what compliments his system really well. Again don't know him to ask these questions.
Q. About the running game, a lot of people talk going back to about their running scheme. What makes it stand out, even though they lose players, they always have effectiveness running the football?
NICK SIRIANNI: Always goes to the players, they have a good offensive line, they have some good players on the offensive line, but how you coach it, right. It's like anything. If I see a play on tape as a coach, and I just throw that play in there, right, there's times that you do that. There's times that you do that.
But sometimes it feels like if you just do that, you don't know all the intricacies of that play and know how to adjust versus all the different things the defense can do to you. It is very clear to me that they know exactly how to run outside zone and their mid zone and how they want to run it and what they need to do versus different things and that's why they have success at it and so that's just him knowing the type of scheme he runs and knowing it well and doing a really good job of coaching the fundamentals of it.
So a tribute to -- we know how good at running the football team they are and that's a tribute to him as a head coach and all his offensive coaches.
Q. How much flexibility do you have give him at the line of scrimmage as far as checking in and out of different plays or maybe changing a play?
NICK SIRIANNI: Sure. You know, it's a -- nothing is extreme, so it's not like just go do everything you need to do.
There's plays where we put, hey, we want off these couple looks, this is what we want to get to. Off this look, we want you to get to this. Or, hey, if you see this look we want to check to it. So there's flexibility but the flexibility changes based off the play based off the look. Sorry, I know that might not answer your question.
Q. You talked about wanting to have every single wide receiver be able to play every position, tight ends, how much does that help you every week?
NICK SIRIANNI: When you are able to move guys around, it is hard to key in on a guy and know where he is. It definitely helps. If you're stationary as a wide out and you just stay in one spot, some teams go, you're only to the right, outside or some teams say you're only the Z or the Z or the F or whatever they want to call that. I think talking to the defensive coordinators in my past, it's a little easier for them to take that guy away. The other thing we like to do is move them around based off what they do well. It's a duel purpose.
Before you even think of scheme, I was taught this by my head college coach a long time ago, Larry Kerris, before you think about scheme, it's first about the players. Players, players, players, players, players, players. What do they do well, put them in positions what they do well and then try to match that up to the scheme. I think that's what it's about more so than anything, and because we do it that way, I do think it poses more issues to the defense.
Q. When you look at Jalen Hurts's completion percentage from last year, it was 52 percent. What was the one thing you felt like you had to help him improve on this year?
NICK SIRIANNI: That's just getting the reps of the plays we know we're going to run. We needed to get him reps, and we feel confident that he's read a lot of these things multiple times throughout camp. We held back a lot of these things, obviously, in preseason to not give a good -- for the opposing defenses to get a good look of it. It's just getting the reps -- very similar to the question I answered here with Kyle. You want to make sure that they know what to do, with your base plays they know what to do versus every different look. That's why San Francisco 49ers are good at the outside zone play or mid zone play. We want to do that same thing and that's what's important to me is hey, where you're going versus this look, where you're going versus this look, where are you going when you think it's this look but then it turns to this look, right.
It's just the added reps of getting to know where to go with the football, because he's a good enough passer, he's a good passer, right, and he does a lot of other things really well. It's the accumulated reps of decisions of where you are go with the football, does that mean you throw in rhythm every single time? No, but you'll know more to go with the football, but if he doesn't, then he has that great weapon of being able to run the football.
Q. How much of a challenge is this game against the 49ers opposed to last week?
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, again, I didn't -- I don't think of it that way. I just think of what we need to do to win this football game and that's what the last two days have been of our game plan and that's what we'll continue to do the next two days. What do we need to do to win this football game, offensively, defensively, special teams-wise and now that we are here with the players in the building, I sound like a broken record, I get it, but what are we going to do to make sure we leave this building better than when we stepped in here today? 9 pressure of any win or loss or home game, it's focused on what do we need to do to win this football game and how are we going to execute and how do we put ourselves in position as a team like we did last week to get better every day, so when you step up on the field on Sunday, you're ready. Practices were crisp last week and we stepped on the field and were ready to play that game. If we don't have good practices this week, we're not going to be ready. It's being in that mentality, that mindset, that dog mentality to put yourself in position to go out and win the game on Sunday.
Q. What are you anticipating as far as the environment and atmosphere and first time for you there with everybody there?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited, definitely, to get this home crowd behind us. What a great football city this is. Fans are the best in the NFL. So of course like you see the challenges that are posed to you when you go to another home field, right. You go on the road, there's challenges. There's things you have to work on throughout practice throughout the week to help prepare yourself. So knowing that -- and every detail counts. With the margin of error so small in the NFL, everything matters. Everything matters. Not -- not just, hey, these things matters. Everything matters. And so this home crowd matters. Can't wait, knowing that the margin of error is that small and now we have the home crowd out here cheering us on, that's a huge advantage, super excited to feel that energy, to feel that energy we come out, I'm going to be looking at that screen when rocky comes on. I've talked about rocky before. But I'm going to be looking at that screen when rocky comes on, Adrian says win and everybody guess juiced up. I'm going to have some energy when I see that.
Q. The terminology from the players has not been week two, week two, it's been round one, round two. From your perspective, is there something significant to that message?
NICK SIRIANNI: It's just that you can win round one and if you're sitting in the corner thinking about how good you fought round one, you're going to get your butt kicked in round two. It just ties into -- and it is, it's like -- I mean, the NFL, it's awesome. It's like -- think about all the fans we have in the NFL. It's unbelievable this game. I love this game. And so it's like a heavyweight prize fight, all those people pay all that money to go see it and the Pay-Per-View to see it. It's the comparison that every game is a heavyweight championship bout. It's a couple different modes, like it's playing the next play mode and next game mode but every round freaking matters and let's go.
Q. Does Fletcher Cox need to get involved, more tackles?
NICK SIRIANNI: I like the defensive line rotation. We definitely need that and we need to be able to keep those guys fresh to keep that pressure on the quarterback and on the run game. Fletch affected the game a lot of different ways that sometimes it doesn't show up on the stat sheet. They will come, though. When you affect the game the way he was affecting the game, those stats will come.
Q. The 49ers signed Kerryon Johnson to their practice squad, do you have to change anything?
NICK SIRIANNI: My experience with that is he doesn't know what the game plan is this week, right. He can go in there with a lot of different information but that's a lot of information to dissect. I know any time we've been in that scenario and you start to talk to the guy about, what do you do here, what do you do here, okay, it becomes too much. It can become too much information. So we'll have a couple things that we need to do most definitely, but we can't overreact to that either.
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