Q. Take us through when you found out what happened and how this impacts your plan for Saturday.
NICK SIRIANNI: You're talking about the illness? This morning. This morning. We're just -- I hope everybody with the Dolphins is okay. We don't have any symptoms on our side. That's why we're out here practicing today. Again, I'm not a doctor to know all these things. But after discussing with our trainers and doctors, we're good to go and good to practice and hope everybody in Miami feels good.
Q. How do you wrestle with that intensity in this practice knowing probably would have had naturally with the joint practice?
NICK SIRIANNI: Our guys know how to practice. They know how to come out here and compete. We'll talk through it right before practice starts of, hey, this is a high-intensity practice. A lot of work with the 1s. We're going to get more work with the 1s here today and get after it, get better from this practice, like we try to do every time we come out in practice.
Q. When would you say you need to know if the game can be played on Saturday?
NICK SIRIANNI: I don't need a timetable on that. Like I said, our guys are ready. And our guys are healthy and fine. And like I said, hopefully they feel better. Whatever they tell us to do, we'll do. As far as the league tells us to do, we'll do. But like I said, we're good on our end.
Q. What areas do you think Jalen has improved from the start of camp to now?
NICK SIRIANNI: Shoot, a lot of different things. I think he's seeing the field really well. I think he's seeing -- he's building that memory bank of plays versus different coverages and knowing where to go with the football from that.
I just think his decision-making process is just continuing to get better, which is common among quarterbacks that are on it and that are getting better. I just think his decision-making is happening fast. It's happening quickly. And he just keeps getting better at that.
Q. Ask about yesterday's practice, after you watched the tape last night.
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, it was definitely a competitive practice. And I was glad our guys fought through some of the adversity that we had as far as the heat and just competed.
Offensively, one thing that really stood out to me offensively was the efficiency on third down, I thought was really good.
And just I thought Jalen was outstanding in yesterday's practice. I mean, to me, Jalen's practice yesterday was the best practice he's had as an Eagle since I've been here.
I can't speak for the year before I got here. What he was doing with the football and being able to go through reads and the progressions that fast and getting the ball to where it needed to go, I thought, was unbelievable. There was a play on third down.
We're running some sort of slant to A.J. They took it away by coverage, and it was third and five. And he checks it down quickly to the tight end, to Jack Stoll, over the ball.
He did the same thing on another slant to A.J. when he went over the top to DeVonta. I'm not sure on all the times I've ever been a part of that play I've never seen the ball go there and Jalen found it and figured out how to get it there.
I thought, it was just happening. Everything was happening so quick for him -- not quick for him -- actually it seemed like everything had slowed down for him and he was getting the ball out on time. And I just thought he was at the top of his game yesterday. And that's a great development for us.
Q. Offense, team drills. There were penalties, dropped pass. Dallas --
NICK SIRIANNI: Dallas's dropped pass. We had one dropped pass. We chart that every day.
Q. And Jalen almost threw an interception to DeVonta.
NICK SIRIANNI: I don't think Melvin Ingram was getting to that ball. It was a good pass breakup. But Melvin was dropping on that play. I didn't think he was getting to that one.
Yeah, I thought -- we had a couple too many pre-snap penalties. Penalties are going to happen here and there. But we had three pre-snap penalties on offense, two on defense. And we obviously want to eliminate as many pre-snap ones as we possibly can. But I thought it was sharp on offense, as far as what we were doing.
I didn't think we ran it as efficiently as we did. But went from our numbers, we were 85 percent passing, 85 percent completion percentage, which is pretty damn good.
Q. How much more do you learn --
NICK SIRIANNI: But let me finish that. But definitely that defense, I've got a lot of respect for those defensive coaches for Miami. They cause a lot of things to have to sort through and talk through and pose a lot of things that you have to talk through as a staff to make sure.
So I just think they're really well-coached on defense, for sure. And I think the whole team is well-coached. And so they forced us to play our roles, which is good for us. We needed to see different styles of defenses like that.
Q. How much do you learn from that different defense, different environment, not just Jalen, but with everybody, when you...
NICK SIRIANNI: It helps. Because you don't go out there every single week and play the same defense every single week. And it's good to get against different schemes and that's one of the benefits of these joint practices. And obviously we're bummed today that we can't go out and compete with them today.
But it really helps. I mean, again, in training camp, you want to be able to play your roles and play your roles on each individual play and handle any of the things that pop up. And again that's what I felt like our players did a good job of yesterday is handling some of the unknowns.
You've got their whole playbook that they can throw at you. We've just got to handle some of the unknowns by playing your roles, which will just get you better at your plays that you do and you want to execute.
Q. Ugo Amadi, why so quick to move on after you guys acquired him?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think that's probably a better question for Howie. Obviously we talked through everything together. It looked good on both ends. But you can talk to Howie about that.
Q. How have you seen away from the field A.J. Brown fit into the culture that you try to implement?
NICK SIRIANNI: He's awesome. He fits in great. Obviously a guy comes in, and the amount of plays he's made in this league, has automatic respect of everybody. The way he interacts with his teammates and works on the practice field, he fits great into our culture. We want to get better every day at practice. We want to compete. We want to connect with our guys.
And he speaks to all those things. So I love having him on the team for his play-making ability, and I love having him on the team for the person and the person and the teammate that he is.
Q. Do you prefer keeping three quarterbacks on the active roster? What's the debate there between 2 and 3?
NICK SIRIANNI: It just all depends. It all depends on your roster situation in general. Sometimes it doesn't even come down to who the quarterbacks are. It comes down to some of the roster things. I've had two at times and I've had three at times. I'd probably say more on the two side than the three side, to be quite honest with you. It just depends on a lot of different things.
And I think Gardner had a really nice day yesterday as well. And I think Reid's had a good camp throughout. So I'm happy with the situation we have right now.
Q. How does it feel to have a set of 53 at this point?
NICK SIRIANNI: There's so many more things -- we have so many more days to be able to sort through it. I don't want to give you a percentage of like how good I feel or anything like that. But the thing is we don't have to make a decision yet. But we feel good with the competition that's going on right now. I think the more you have in the conversation, like this guy or this guy or this guy, this guy, that's better because you're having a good competition throughout. And that's what I feel like we're having with the amount of talent that Howie and his staff has brought in.
Q. Quez Watkins, kick returner, why do you like him?
NICK SIRIANNI: Why do we like him? Again, you're saying we like Quez Watkins as a quick returner right now, but there's still a battle. I think the more you can get playmakers the ball in their hands, that's a good thing, right? Get them touches. And that's a good thing. So, like, we'll see who wins that job. But we definitely want somebody explosive back there that can put fear into the defense. And there's no doubt Quez is a guy that can do that.
Q. (Inaudible) he obviously missed a lot of time. Seemed to show up a little bit yesterday. How much did that time away hurt him as a rookie player and how much has he caught up?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think we talked about this a couple days ago. Of course that time away as a rookie is going to hurt anybody's development. But he came out yesterday, had some good plays. And we just are happy to have him back right now and be able to contribute to that room.
So of course it hurt him being away. But the trainers and our strength staff did a great job of getting him back into shape where he's out here now competing and we'll see how it continues to go. We're happy of the play of the player and we have to keep evaluating him out here in practice.
Q. How is Jaquiski (phonetic) coming, since he came back in the game yesterday and is Slay good to go?
NICK SIRIANNI: Slay will practice today and Jaquiski (phonetic) doing a great job out here. Fighting for a position and he's working every single day. It was a great hit he had on the sideline against Cleveland the other day. You see him in those drills. He had that one hit on the sideline that he cleaned up a play on fourth down that got a good stop.
So you see some of the things of why you brought him here every time he steps on the field. So I'm glad he's here and competing with the guys.
Q. In the past, how the staff monitors everything to kind of see what's going on elsewhere. With Detroit being the week one opponent, are you monitoring "Hard Knocks"?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think people just watch "Hard Knocks" because it's good entertainment to watch. And as far as monitoring anything we're just trying to stay in the day and in the moment. We're worried about training camp. We're worried about Miami right now and how we get ready for them and how we're going to get ready for this practice. But we're staying in the moment. I haven't had a chance to watch it. But is it good?
Q. I'm still behind.
NICK SIRIANNI: But we're just trying to stay in the moment. That's our motto all year. It's not, hey, we are worrying about Dallas, Washington or New York. You've got to play the games on your schedule ahead of it. I know Detroit is our first game. But we're a little bit aways from that. And we're focused on getting better today.
Q. With three joint practices you did have, what did you learn about your team? The three joint practices you did have, what did you learn about your team?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think what we learned is that we are a physical bunch. And I think that was what we learned last year as the year continued on is that this team is tough, this team is gritty and physical. And I think they continue to show that through these joint practices.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports