Q. What stood out to you today in practice?
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, I'm just happy that we're all in there together working again. I'm not going to get into who I thought stood out. We're excited about the guys that are here both all -- every guy that's here, right. No matter if it's a first round draft pick, second round draft pick, free agent, tryout guys. We are excited to get our eyes on these guys and watch them. That's the first day and they have got a another day coming up tomorrow and we just look forward to continuing to evaluate them.
Q. You mentioned Nakobe's enthusiasm on the phone after you guys drafted him. Did you feel that from him today?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know, I can sense he's all ball all the time, whether we are in a meeting or on the field, he's locked in. You definitely felt that from him and you know, we knew that about him coming into -- before we even drafted him. He definitely showed that today and he showed that yesterday in our meetings.
Q. You mentioned during the scouting process when it comes to defensive players, your role is to give the offensive perspective. So when it comes to Jordan and Nakobe Dean, what was your perspective?
NICK SIRIANNI: Good luck blocking Jordan, he's pretty big. He can push the pocket. He can eat up double teams where they can't get off to the second part -- back to the linebacker. With Nakobe, he's got great instinct and he's all over the field. He's where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there and you've got to account for that as an offense.
Q. What did you like about Carson to add him to the group?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I thought he did a good job today. It's a lot. He's reading different plays and running different plays, to have to go back and manage everything. One thing I'm not impressed by is when a guy can come out and call a play because there's a lot of guys that don't call plays, right, they look to the sideline. We call plays in the huddle. He was pretty smooth at that. He got ready for this day today, so he was really sharp and he knew what to do and he knew where to go with the football. He's got a big arm and you definitely can see that so we are just -- those are tools to work with. His side and arm strength is noticeable when he's out there.
Q. Is your base defense going to be a 4-3 or 3-4?
NICK SIRIANNI: A lot of other teams probably want that answer, too. I will put this out now, I'll never answer that. You'll figure it out when we play the first game.
Q. What do you want to accomplish in these two days with the young players?
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, the main thing is that they show us what they can do. I've instructed the coaches to be very basic in their installs, to not do a lot so they can go out there and show us what they can do. That's what we want to see. Obviously I want these guys talking to each other and connecting and getting in tune with what we believe in our core values. All those things off the field and learning our systems. Really these two days are about what they can do and finding out who sticks out. He asked me the question earlier, who sticks out, what they can do and that's really what it is, and so the main thing on our end as coaches is to not do too much, want to see this guy in this or there. See what they can do in some individual drills and team drills and see what they can do in some one-on-one drills so we can continue to evaluate these guys in person.
Q. What made you move on from Nate when you did?
NICK SIRIANNI: We got a pretty deep room right there, and Nate did an unbelievable job as far as being able to step in and play in some very moments. He gave us some really good reps and really good play and some meaningful games. But you know, we've got a deep room right there. Went get into any personnel decisions round at this particular time but I can't thank Nate enough for all the things that he contributed to this program in the first year and the years that he's been here and again, like I said, he's a great teammate. The Jets are going to be glad to have him and I'm happy for him that he landed on his feet because like I said, he gave us a lot of good minutes last year.
Q. If I can take you back a little bit, at the conclusion or during the Bucs loss, Troy Aikman had some criticisms, not just you in particular, but later on, coaching, over-scheming things when they have players of Smith's abilities, just win one-on-one and obviously with the additional A.J. Brown you have another guy who can win one-on-one. Is that something that got back to you or something you're cognizant of as you're building your playbook and drawing up games and relying on scheme?
NICK SIRIANNI: There's definitely a happy medium there. You can't just go out there and lay the ball out there and say roll, go, you guys just go get them and there's no structure. But again you don't want to do too much. There's definitely, you know, we do our best to put our players in the position to make plays, and that doesn't always mean like well we are trying to scheme them up to be wide open. Sometimes it like how do we keep it up where he's one-on-one in this these scenarios. That's what we are constantly trying to do.
Like I said, put our players in position to make plays. And sometimes that is like getting them wide open and sometimes it is, hey, you've got to beat this guy one-on-one. That's just what we try to do on a consistent basis.
Q. The fact that Jordan and Nakobe played for so long at Georgia, were you able to see the familiarity they have with each other and do you think that will ease their transition in the NFL?
NICK SIRIANNI: Most definitely. I think that's just one less thing, with Nakobe behind Jordan, helping him get lined up and making him calm in the huddle, there's so many things that they are trying to get used to round. That's definitely one less thing. He's heard so many calls of Nakobe making the call in the huddle and him executing the call.
Of course any familiarity like that is going to help. It's rare that you get two guys from the same team on a team just because there's so many teams,32 teams picking and everything like that. Yeah, we are definitely excited in many different ways, right. You go to a new place and you have a familiar face to be able to talk to and everything like that. It's not just on the football side but off the field adds well.
Q. A DBs you brought in, does that speak to the unsettled nature of that c B 2 position?
NICK SIRIANNI: I don't know. All right. I like that. Right what we are trying to do, we are wanting to run 7 on 7 reps and you have to have volume there. We know these guys right now are not in football shape, right. This is really a little bit rare. When you bring in a rookie, they have been training for the draft, the combine, to run a 40 and run the drills a little bit. They are not truly in football shape right now. We have to be very careful about how we manage these guys in practice right now. You're not going to see everything you want to see in guys right now because again they are not in football shape. When we do our seven-on-seven reps we want to have enough for a two-deep to be able to rotate the guy so they are not running too many plays in a row and they can go out there and again, like you asked me earlier, what's the main goal to, see what they can do. That's the volume a little bit speaks to, hey, we've got to have enough numbers to be able to execute and to be able to see what guys can do. So that's a little bit. Of course, we feel good about the guys in the room that we have right now and some of the guys that are coming in that we've invited into this camp, draft, free agents, everybody that we brought into the rookie mini-camp. I feel good about that room and the position battles that are taking place and taking place right now in our meetings and weight room.
Q. If memory serve, last year's arrangement included no seven-on-seven, no 11 on 11?
NICK SIRIANNI: We are definitely doing seven-on-sevens. We are transitioning away a little bit more from 11-on-11s this year. We are not going to see those this year the but I think you know we have two weeks of OTAs and look forward to getting a lot of work done on our individual where we are work on our fundamentals and we can work on our seven-on-seven because it helps our skill guys and quarterback in making the read and different looks he's going to get.
We've had real little good attendance, I don't know that it's been perfect every single day but we've had really good attendance through the first two weeks.
Q. We talked to Jaylen earlier in the week and you mentioned he was going out to southern California, he said that as well. Interested in how you guys work that out. How do you guys connect? Again I've had quarterbacks go out there that I've had nothing to do with it and quarterbacks that I have. In this case, Jaylen and I worked together and Brian and Shane worked together to set this up, you know, because that was something that he was interested in doing that we were interested in doing so yeah it was a group effort. Last week a lot of the things that we do here right, when we game, group effort. This was a group effort. So it's fun to organize that together and to be able to work and get him out to southern California?
Q. How important will OTAs be for mentoring?
NICK SIRIANNI: Trying to catch me in the mentor thing right now.
Q. Will it be more important for the veterans to bring these guys along?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think it's important for the team in general to be around each other. I've watched these guys and seeing them from afar, I'm not in the weight room right now because that's their time with the strength coach right now but seeing from afar and hearing how they are interacting with each other. It's just important they are around their teammates right now. This is a time for them to build connection. Sometimes it's hard in the season to build connections. You're so focused on the game and the next thing, now we work like crazy to do it but it seems like there's a little bit more time now. They work out, they go to meetings and then time the rest of the day to connect with each other and that's definitely something we notice that these guys are really working to connect at this time and help each other out. I think we just have a great group of guys that truly genuinely like being around each other and truly want to help each other out. I see that every day.
Q. What did you say to Frank about A.J. Brown --
NICK SIRIANNI: I always like to keep Frank and I's conversations private. So I won't -- I don't know what he said. I'm sure he was happy. I'm sure he was happy -- he's not in the division any more, though. I know if that would have happened if I was in the division I would have texted the coach and said thanks for getting them out of the division and sent them a keg of beer.
Q. What have your conversations -- what is the malt?
NICK SIRIANNI: Derek, when I got here, I used to see the same guy that's determined every day to get better at his craft. Derek is obsessed with football and trying to become the best player that he can. I really appreciate that with him. He works hard in the classroom, the weight room and works extremely hard on the field. I just see the same guy every single day. I'm excited that we have him become on this football team to continue to add depth to that defensive line. I really think we are in a good spot with the defensive line and really excited about that group and I'm really excited to have Barnett back on the football team.
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