Q. Talk about trying to fill Dan Lanningham halfway game do you think he needs to halfway need to advertise his skill set?
COACH SIRIANNI: We're constantly building. And so right now it's just a little portion of it, right? We've built through free agency a little bit. But we have a lot of draft, draft picks that are about to come up. There can always be guys added to the roster later on. And so it's building. I never really think you're ever a finished product. You're always building, trying to get better. But I am excited about the pieces we've added so far.
Q. Back seven on defense, how do you think you stand there?
COACH SIRIANNI: Again, we have so much more time. I think about last year even after the draft where we added an important piece to our back seven with Steve Nelson. And so again I feel good about the guys that we have on the team. Obviously you have Darius Slay. He'll be mad that I said Darius, but Slay, who is a high quality corner we all know.
And I think we have a lot of good, young corners that showed us a lot in practice that maybe didn't get the time to go out on the field last year to play that we're really excited about. And I don't want to miss anybody. But you have Zech McPhearson, obviously; you have Tay Gowan; you have Mac McCain, Kary Vincent -- all those guys who are young first-year players. And we have a great secondary group of coaches. We have Dennard Wilson, D.K. McDonald and obviously Jonathan Gannon working with the secondary. I can't wait to see how those guys continue to develop their game, because they're going to have some great coaching.
Q. (Inaudible) this offseason in terms of the work he does whether it's with a personal quarterback coach, and what are some things he does need to improve on this summer for next season?
COACH SIRIANNI: Well, obviously at this point in time you're not supposed to be talking football with your players, but Jalen and I talk all the time. Not about football, but different things. And obviously at the end of your meeting, with every player that we've had it with, again I'm not even through all the players yet, but like you have a conversation about -- our conversation goes a little bit like, hey, we just talked a little bit about what he did well, what we need to improve on, where they're working out, any tips about the I guess to say the organization and how we can make that better. So that everything's on the table.
And it's like that with every player. And obviously you even have a closer relationship with the quarterback because you're with them all the time. So it was no different there with Jalen.
Q. Yesterday, the challenges coming from some interesting things in the offseason (inaudible) maybe he come to you said it, heard, has it filtered back to you what are the specifics?
COACH SIRIANNI: He's working with different people. And I'm not going to put his business out there as far as -- but he's working with some people down in Southern California to throw. I let you guys kind of do the digging there to find out more with that. But this guy, again, I go back to the type of guys that maximize their football potential and what are the common denominators of those guys. They have high character. They have high football IQ. They love football. They're tough and they're competitive. Jalen is all of those things.
And so Jalen is working on trying to get every angle he can to get better. Whether that's working with a quarterback guy or studying film, different ways of doing that. He's doing everything he can do to get better.
Q. You briefed on a lot of players on depth roles, Boston Scott, things like that, do you think there's a correlation between the connection and wanting to bring those guys back into the building?
COACH SIRIANNI: Yes, of course. I would definitely say that I get attached to guys. And you know exactly the type of job they can do and what they do for you. And that's exciting, right, to be able to have a guy come back that performed a big role for you and was it the role that Boston wanted early on, probably not. Right? With Myles carrying the heavy load of it and Kenny Gainwell playing a lot.
We just have a good -- we had a good stable of backs last year, but I really value Boston as a player, as a teammate and I'm glad we have him back and I'm glad we have some of those guys back in those roles.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: That's still to be determined, right? I know the role that Zach played for us when he was in Indianapolis. Early on in Zach's career to me he was one of the best four or five wide receivers in the NFL. What I mean by that, he was the fourth guy. He can back up every position in the slot. He can back up on the outside. He played a big key in special teams. He brought an element of toughness to the group. And so that's what his role was early on.
Then the following year he was, in 2019, he was like our number three. That got elevated with some injuries to being our number two and number one at times. So Zach -- and where you really like Zach is again that toughness that he brings. A lot is to be determined still with the group but it's an important piece that we're excited to have. And we know the type of football character that Zach brings to the Philadelphia Eagles and to our organization. And couldn't be more happy about Zach being an Eagle.
Q. In terms of ready, how do you expect to use him? Is he at the end or stand up guy?
COACH SIRIANNI: There's 31 other teams that want to know exactly how we're going to use him. And the way I'm going to think about it is we don't have to make a decision until that first game. I don't even know who that first game is against. We obviously with many plans. Obviously you wouldn't sign a guy for the way -- that kind of contract unless we had major plans for him. But I think at this particular time, that's to our advantage of how we're going to use him. Obviously you pay a guy like that to rush the passer, that will be definitely a big part of our plan for him is that that's what he gets paid to do and that's a need that we have that we want him to help fill that role with the rest of the defensive ends that we have on our football team.
Q. Have you guys had any interest from other teams in Gardner Minshew, and do you have a sense where his mentality is after expressing that he wanted to be the starter last year?
COACH SIRIANNI: Sure. Again, I don't want to get into anybody else's business -- that's with other teams or anything like that -- but all I can say is I value Gardner Minshew very much. He helped us make the playoffs last year. With him being able to step in when Jalen was dinged and play a very good game against the Jets. I mean, that just adds value to him.
And that adds value for 31 other teams with him. But it also adds value for us as well, knowing that you need good quality backups and I'm sure glad that he is our backup on our football team. And I look forward to continue to go work with him.
Q. You guys made some effort in the wide receiver market whether it be a trade or trade scene you ultimately ended up with Zach and how he was talking about increasing the target score (inaudible) Damontae, wondering always seems like you're doing one thing but saying the other thing. Do you guys really communicate the wide receiver position or are you happy with what you have?
COACH SIRIANNI: You're always looking to improve the team in any way you can. I'm very pleased with this wide receiver group. I'm constantly thinking about groups in the past, how this group stacks up against that group. This group was the number one passing offense in the NFL. How does this group stack up? And I'm very pleased of how our wide receiver group.
We're young, we know that. We're a wide receiver group that's still developing. I don't think you've seen the max potential of any of these guys. I know you haven't seen the max potential of any of these guys. And we're going to be on their butts all offseason, all training camp, to get that max potential out of them. And I understand what you're saying. We're obviously looking to improve our team in any way that we can, and there's rumors out there of what we've been involved in.
But I'm very excited about this wide receiver group. I love the addition of Zach to the wide receiver group. And again this group is growing as a young group.
Q. Follow up on the statement --
COACH SIRIANNI: The targets?
Q. The targets. Obviously at some point last year you decided a certain type of ball defense. Do you feel like you have to get back to being a top passing offense to get to where you guys want to be?
COACH SIRIANNI: I think you see it many different ways throughout the NFL of how teams get it done. And you see that, you can be a top ranked run team. You can be a top ranked pass team to get it done. The main stats that we're really always focused on are did we win the explosive play battle and did we win the turnover battle. And so those are the stats that I really always dive into is did we win those two. And you saw last year that even in a run heavy offense we were able to be an explosive pass offense with the amount of explosive plays we made.
I don't want to corner myself or that's not the right way to say it. But I don't want to say that you have to play this way or you have to play that way. We have to do what's best to be able to win games. And if that's getting DeVonta 140 targets that's what it is. But you want to get those guys and your team -- again, I don't want to give a number of like this is how many targets DeVonta should get. This is how many targets Dallas should get.
Obviously we want to feed our guys that are making plays. And you can still do that and be a run heavy team and you can still do that when you're a pass heavy team.
Q. Get to the playoffs you're watching these games, and you're watching the Chiefs versus the Bills. Watching the Bengals versus the Browns. (Inaudible) your odds greatly increase if you are that type of offense.
COACH SIRIANNI: That's fair. You can definitely see that. Again, I've been a part of teams that have done it both ways. And we're going to do what we feel like we can do best to win football games. You get to watch some really great offenses, passing the football during the playoffs. But I truly believe you can win -- there's always a way to win football games in the NFL. You've just got to find that way that week of how to do that and sometimes your team grows into a run heavy team sometimes it grows into a pass heavy team. We don't have to make that decision of who we are until game one. And really that always evolves. So I'm not pressed about that. And we are going to work like crazy to get our pass game where we want it to get it better. At the end of the day I don't know where we ended up in the pass game, I think it was maybe 25th or 26th, whatever, that needs to be better.
You want to make sure that you're not deficient in any area because then obviously the teams that are game planning against you will have an opportunity to take advantage of that. So we're trying to make our weaknesses -- I'm not saying that -- I don't feel it's the weakness. We're trying to make things that maybe we're not where we want to be or up to our standard we're always trying to get better at those things.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: We're plus-16 on pass plays and plus-10 on run plays. I know the NFL does it differently. That's what we deem as our explosive plays for certain reasons as far as when it comes down to whether you score on that, when you have an explosive play. So that's what our categories have been and that's what we've done. So we keep our own stat with that.
Q. (Inaudible) this offseason he has the benefit now of being able to understand a coach's scheme, defensive players to the roster. What specific skill sets were missing from your offense that you'd like to add?
COACH SIRIANNI: That's a good question. Every position, the communication piece is the most important piece that Howie and I can have together of, hey, here's what the good offenses that I've been a part have been the common denominator. What you try to spell out with every position and I know you guys are obsessed with wideout. So I'll stay with the wide out. And I guess I am, too. But for instance, like for a wide receiver, you always want to spell out the trait that you're looking for, for instance, wins consistently one-on-one.
Well, you want to try to spell out the athletic ability of what it takes to be good at that trait. Body quickness. Play strength. Speed. Whatever it might be. And then you try to spell out a player that you've had in the past that looks like that.
And as you kind of build a wide receiver room or a tight end room or a running back room to fit all the different pieces.
So, again, it's all different body types and body shapes that can make a guy that's good at yards after the catch, right, doesn't have to be big, strong and physical. He could be. Right? Or he could be small, quick and illusive, right? And so again there's many different ways to get it done.
And so I felt like we had a lot of those pieces. You've got one piece that we didn't know if we had right away that we ended up getting in the draft was Kenny Gainwell, like the Nyheim Hines-type or the Danny Woodhead-type or Austin Heckler-type we had in our past in our offenses.
So that was a good piece. And we're going to be able to add pieces throughout the draft. But to pinpoint I guess maybe not to -- we have looked at all that, we know where it needs, but again 31 other teams are going to want to know what our needs are and what we believe our needs. So I think some of that is best kept close to the vest.
Q. The wide receivers that you're (inaudible) how do you do this? How do you know where they can get (inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: That's a good question. You spend all your time evaluating -- when we get done with the season, when we get done with the season it's a constant evaluation of our season. It's a constant evaluation of the guys in the draft, the free agency, and different things you're going to want to do to get better. So you're watching tape.
And it's different. You watch the tape week in, week out. This guy played good in this game this guy played okay in that. Whatever it is. But when you see it as a whole and you're watching for instance you're watching inside zone or you're watching a crosser family in the pass game you can kind of pinpoint even more so like this guy's really good at this. Or this guy's deficient at this. And so what we try to do as coaches, again, is point out the good things and try to correct the bad things.
So, that's what we're in the process of right now, is putting tapes together of here's what Quez Watkins needs to do to get better and to be a better football next year. This is what Jalen Hurts needs to do to be a better football player next year. And that's our job when they first get in our first week with them, we spell it out for them. Here's what you need to get better at. And here's what we want you to succeed at and here's video evidence of that. That's what we're in the process of now. As far as projecting, that's how you do it. You're just evaluating the whole process, and seeing what the guys are good at, what they're deficient at.
Q. You mentioned you speak to Jalen quite a bit, through the offseason. There are a lot of rumors about Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson, the draft coming up, do you offer him reassurances when things like that come up that he's the quarterback the next season?
COACH SIRIANNI: I think our actions do that all the time and we're always communicating, and always talking and our actions show that. I couldn't be more excited about Jalen Hurts and again the type of player he is, the type of person he is. I know he's going to continue to develop because of who he is. And I couldn't be more excited to work with him. And I know -- he's excited to work with us and to build on the good year he had with us last year. He's our guy and we show it to him with our actions day in, day out.
Q. (Inaudible) expand coverage for each position? In the draft, do you and the staff brought specific requirements for each position whether it's height, weight, speed, measurements?
COACH SIRIANNI: It's like I was saying to Bo, you go through and you say here are the needs for this position. And it's not all -- again, I'll stay with wideouts. It's not all wideouts are the same. And I'll go on pass teams too. A guy that's a good yards-after-catch could look like T.Y. Hill and it could look like Jalen Reagor. He could look like Keenan Allen. He could look like Tyrell Williams. They're all different body types. You're looking for the skill set. You're looking for that specific skill set of what you want out of that wideout.
And again in different ways. You see it throughout the league. The way Deebo Samuel runs with the football -- am I allowed to say that? The way Deebo Samuel runs with the football, big, strong, physical. We all see how -- is different than how Tyrell Williams ran. Tyrell Williams, when we were in San Diego, was a great yards-after-catch guy but in a different way. He led the NFL in yards after catch, I think at 16. But he didn't run anybody over. He didn't really make anybody miss. He caught the ball.
He ran his speed to the edge and got yards after the catch on our shallow game. So that can look a lot of different ways. And we just try to spell out the skill set as much as we possibly can. So us and the scouts are on the same page of what has succeeded in the past. Again, there's many different ways to do this thing. I've been on offenses number one on running, and offense number one on passing. So there's many different ways to do it.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: It is. Because there's just so many different types of ways to get it done.
Q. (Inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: To be able to -- it's just a lot to balance, because there's a lot that goes into calling the game. And there's a lot that goes into preparing the team for the week. And so the best thing that I had -- and I'm kind of hearing your question about challenges, but I'm going to say the best thing I had was experienced play callers on my staff that really helped me. Shane Steichen really at the end of the day we called the game together. Shane and I.
He had called the game in the past with the Chargers. Kevin Patullo had done a lot of that, involved in the play calling with Chan Gailey in the college game. Jason Michael was the coordinator our tight end coach, was the coordinator at Tennessee. Brian Johnson is our quarterback coach, who was offensive coordinator at University of Florida.
So Jeff Stoutland, our run game coordinator, has a lot of good ideas in the run game, helped come up with a lot of our ideas in the run game. Along with Jason Michael. I didn't have a shortage of guys that. I just had so many guys that were experienced in calling plays so that helped that transition a lot. And then you're always -- I feel very blessed as far as the head coaching part of it that I've been around really good coaches in my life. I got to sit at home with my dad, who was -- Coach Hackett was the same way -- got to sit home with my dad the first 18 years of my life. I was learning to be a coach right there. I played for probably the winningest college football coach of all time in Larry Kehres, phenomenal head coach, and then my brothers were head coaches. So at Easter dinner or 4th of July weekends, when I had opportunity to grow as a coach there at every one of those opportunities, and then there's been a lot of guys in the NFL that have really helped my career. And these guys know who I'm going to mention. Frank Wright has been a great influence on me. So there were definitely challenges. But I felt like my path to leading up to that helped prepare me for it and then the guys that I had on my staff really helped that go smoothly.
Q. How do you change the play calling, the responsibilities change over the course of the season?
COACH SIRIANNI: As we went through this season, we do everything together. We talk about, hey, here's our first down calls, here's our first 15. Here's our third down calls, here's our red zone calls. And so we went through it that way. But like when we got into the season, it was just I knew what Shane was calling at certain points or I would tell him to call this or he would call that.
And really it was pretty similar throughout the whole year. I mean, that's what we were doing the whole year. And it would free me up at times, like, where I could talk to Shane, what are our next two or three plays that are coming? And Shane -- we would talk it over with Stout. I would talk it over with Shane. Hey, I'd like to see this here and here. And we talk about, here's our next set of plays that are coming up. And then I was able to go talk to -- Shane would call that into the quarterback. Shane would be able to manipulate the way that he wanted that to go, hey, I want to call this first, this second, depending on some things.
And that freed me up to be able to go over to the defensive side and say, hey, let's go. Or hey, that was a great job right here. I think what we see you see Sean McVay talking to his guys all the time on defense or on offense. And I was able to do that because of the experience of Shane as a play caller or go to the special teams and get them going and break down before we went out for a kickoff or anything like that.
Again, just had so much trust in Shane and the way that he thinks about offense, the way we think about offense similarly. And it's just a big benefit for us.
Q. Derek Barnett had rough patches last season. Why are you willing to roll back to those guys?
COACH SIRIANNI: I had rough patches last season. Jalen had rough patches last season. We believe in those guys. We believe in Fletcher Cox. We believe in Derek Barnett. Not only of the type of player. But Fletcher Cox is still dominant in the run game. He's still a dominant player in the run game that can stop the run. And still can get after -- he can still get after the passer. Derek Barnett is everything that embodies what we want in the characteristics of a player. He's tough. He's competitive. He's got high football IQ. He's got high character. He loves football. And I love Derek Barnett. I love the type of player and the type of person that he is. And so we just felt like they fit what we want not only as a player but as a person and as a teammate. And so I'm excited to get those guys back in the roles that they're going to play this year and on our team.
Q. The pass signing shows your sway over personnel -- the pass signings, you can argue that shows the sway you have over personnel. Wonder if your voice is growing in that area and how it's working with Howie?
COACH SIRIANNI: Again, Howie and I talk about everything and every decision we make is we talk through it. Obviously Howie is in charge of the team and putting the team together. But he's using all the resources that he has to help do that. And so we talk about everything. And of course I thought I want Zach Pascal on this football team. I don't think that's a secret here. But my job is to explain how we would use Zach Pascal. My job is to explain what I see in the player and again the use of it and/or if it's on the defensive side of the ball, it's to explain, like, as an offensive coach I fear this guy or I don't fear this guy. That's kind of how we go about that right there.
And then Howie's job is to see if it makes sense for the team. And so again, that's why this is such a great team game, it's not only every position on the field working in unison to get the job done, but then it's also behind the scenes, too, that you better be on the same page. The parity in this league is so tight that anything that bumps your course off can affect you. And so that's the communication is one of those things.
So it's been awesome working with Howie to help build the team that can get back to the playoffs and do damage in the playoffs.
Q. (Inaudible) what does that mean for you. Heard Howie got a contract extension that runs concurrent with you.
COACH SIRIANNI: I'm excited about that. One place where I feel like I lucked out as a first-year head coach -- this is the one place I feel very fortunate is that I wasn't stepping into a situation right alongside a rookie GM. I was stepping into a situation -- I've said this before in the past -- like, it was very unique for me. I was stepping into a situation with a GM that's won a Super Bowl. That's won the NFC East more times than the NFC East than in the past 15 years, that's been to the playoffs in the top five in the NFL. I was walking into a situation with a lot of experience, which I valued. So I love the fact that I'm going to be working side by side with him for the next three years and hopefully, and continuation on that.
Q. Backup or roster player steps into a (inaudible)?
COACH SIRIANNI: You're always looking for all your guys to grow. I mentioned those corners earlier, right? And I don't want to single out a position group, but since I talked about the corners earlier, I'll stay in that position group.
Those guys have a great opportunity this year and we believe in those guys. We believe in the skill sets that they have. We believe in the competitiveness, the toughness, the character, the football IQ, the love of football that those guys have. And I'm really excited to see how that plays out.
There's four young guys. And we obviously have two great veterans there with Avonte and with Slay and then we have four young guys that are vying for a position. What a battle that's going to be this year to be able to see who steps up and takes that position.
And so I'm excited for those guys. I'm excited for those -- we talked about the wideouts. I'm excited for that group of guys to continue to get better. And we're going to need everybody to get better. I'm going to need to get better. Kevin Patullo is going to need to get better and Brian Johnson is going to need to get better and Jonathan Gannon's going to need to be better. And we're all fighting every day to do that. It's kind of cool coming into something like this.
We were in a meeting the other day it was showing all the highlights of the NFL of the whole year, and it gets you excited, can't wait to get back to work and keep building this team and developing our players so we can be the last ones standing. But we don't think too far ahead. We just think one day at a time. But it's been kind of cool to see all that stuff this year.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports