NICK SIRIANNI: Afternoon.
Q. What has impressed you the most about Jalen's development in the passing game?
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, just the way he's kind of seeing the field right now. He's identifying what's coming, he's knowing where to go with the football. His accuracy has been really outstanding. I think his numbers speak for itself, where we are at this point in the season. He's been on it.
It's that development that you always want out of every quarterback, is to see it faster, to get the ball to the that the guys that the ball is supposed to go to, the coverage they're playing, that it's an accurate ball.
He's continued to improve on those guys.
Q. Doug Pederson coming in, being familiar with some of these players, their tendencies, do you consider that any kind of tactical advantage for him?
NICK SIRIANNI: I think we're always talking about constantly improving, constantly improving. I think what we've seen here, I don't know the exact number of guys that are still on the roster from when Doug was here, Jalen to me is a completely different player than he was two years ago. That speaks volumes to Jalen.
Of course. But him knowing some inside information on our players, of course that's an advantage, just like it's an advantage when we find that stuff out, too.
It's not like we're using the same words they used here or anything like that as far as their defense having some (indiscernible) as far as that goes. Of course, Doug is going to know those guys, intricacies about some of those.
A lot of them are different players, improved players, just because they've gotten better each day.
Q. We always talk about quarterbacks elevating the talent around them. You're a former receiver. How much can receivers elevate the quarterback?
NICK SIRIANNI: I definitely think it's both and. That's why it's the greatest team game, right? The quarterback can't be all he can be if the receiver is not all he can be, if the O-line isn't all they can be.
That's a constant message of what we've been talking about here. I'm alluding to everybody, right? The whole thing of: I am because we are, right?
The accolades the guys are getting each week, with Brandon Graham getting the defensive player of the week this week, right, that doesn't happen unless Brandon had great individual play, but the coverage was really good. We won on first down to put him in a third down scenario.
It is. It's like, yes, the quarterback can elevate everybody, and so a good offensive line can elevate everybody, a good receiver can elevate everybody. That's why it's such an ultimate team game. I think that's what's pretty special about this game.
Q. Is it difficult to accurately judge your tape after a win, specifically making sure you don't at it through rose-colored glasses?
NICK SIRIANNI: You guys have heard me talk about Larry Kehres at Mount Union. You came in there every Monday knowing that this is what needs to get corrected. You don't look at it with any colored glasses. The standard is what it is. Did we meet the standard or did we not meet the standard?
That conversation first happens. If you live that world, it doesn't matter what the results were. You're just working on how you get better from that.
That standard is not just us as coaches saying that to the player. That standard is also us as coaches holding ourselves to that standard first.
You can't go through the grind of saying we're going to get better every single day without holding yourself to that standard as coaches first.
Again, we try to paint a very clear picture to the players of their job description. What's your job description on each individual look? Did we meet that job description as coaches and players? Yes, we praise. No, we correct it.
Sometimes I think after a win, it's easier to really get after guys, right? You're able to do that. What it really comes down to is did we meet the standard. If we did, we're high-fiving, going crazy, just as crazy as we're going when it's not met.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: The film of him just being here in the first place. How good of a football player we know he is lets me know that first of all.
Secondly, right, we saw how close he was. One thing I do know about defensive end play is that as an offensive coach, like, it can be very tempting at times to be, He hasn't had a sack in three weeks, I'm not going to help on him. Then, boom, it's like an explosion.
That is a trap that offensive coaches fall into. Frank Wright would always talk to me about that. I've told you guys before that we talked as far as in the AFC West back in the day, when we were with the Chargers, every team had really good rushers. Frank would always talk to me about that with Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis. Bam, they had like four sacks, right?
That has always stuck with me, too. With the amount of good rushers that we have, just seeing the way he was playing, I knew he was close. Obviously we knew he was a good player, we know he's a good player, out on the field with him every single day. Sometimes that's the tendency that happens in this league with good rushers.
Q. Unusual you get the running game going at all on Sunday. It's been rare around here the last couple years. What did you see watching the film?
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, they did a good job. I thought they did an outstanding job of doing some different things on the front that made it difficult. They have good players.
Again, you go into each game with an idea of what you want to do. But that shifts and that changes. It was muddy a little bit, right? It was tough. Give them credit. Give them credit.
We got to put our players in better positions to be able to do what we want to do in the run game. But that did open up some things in the pass game, then the game kind of shifted there to what our emphasis was.
That's a sign we're going in the right direction, that it can shift in the sense of, all right, they're stopping the run, go to the pass. They're stopping the pass, go to the run. They're stopping this, whatever it might be.
I thought that was a good job by Shane and the offensive coaches of shifting the emphasis of what was working. But as far as the run game, credit to them, their defensive coaches and their defensive play-makers.
Q. What have you said or done about the second half scoring thing?
NICK SIRIANNI: Like I said to you guys earlier, we played pretty opposite of what we did in the game before, right? Felt like we took our foot off the gas a little bit in the Minnesota game. That's me. That's nobody else. That's me. Not Sham.
In the next game sometimes it's a natural reaction to do the opposite of what you didn't think went well the last game. So we were super aggressive.
Wise man avoids all extremes. You don't want to be extreme in anything you do. You don't want to take your foot completely off the gas, go super aggressive to try to put the game away. You want to do what you did well, understanding the defense is going to adjust.
We've talked through all those things. We know we got to be better in the second half. Obviously that starts with coaching.
Q. It's the nature of coaching changes that most new coaches take offense for guys that lose, try to change everything. It was a different situation here. How did you manage that, especially with hold-over staffers, players?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, we went through our process with everything as far as, Okay, let's go through the staff process. I knew how good of a Coach Stout was and T.J. Paganetti and Roy. We knew how good of coaches they were, and we wanted to keep them on staff.
As far as the players, again, it's the same process there. Knowing that Howie had a good feel obviously of every player, right, who was here. That's just that communication of keeping the guys that you wanted to keep. A lot of good players obviously held over from the previous staff.
I guess I've said this plenty of times, that I wasn't like a first year head coach last year in the sense of what usually happens with a first year head coach is there, they're not great on the O-line, D-line, because that's where you win football games. I had quite the opposite scenario as a first year head coach.
A tribute to the players we have at those positions. Jason Kelce, Isaac, Jordan, all the defensive linemen too with Fletch, Hargrave, BG, Sweat. It's unbelievable how good of players they are at those positions and how good Howie and his staff have built this team.
Q. What are you seeing from Trevor Lawrence?
NICK SIRIANNI: We didn't cross over with him as much last year. I don't have as much study on him as last year. Obviously we looked at some this year of last year.
But you see a guy that was picked first in the draft for a reason, right? He was the biggest talk last year coming out of Clemson, and for good reason. He was a heck of a football player, had a great college career.
He's showing all those things now. He's a really good football player. You saw some of that, too, at spurts last year, definitely stretches at the end of the year where he played really outstanding. He's just building on that.
This is a good football player. Really talented. A lot of people say once-in-a-lifetime quarterback prospect. We see all the talent that he has. We're going to have to be on it and make sure we get some stops on him.
Q. Looking at the national narrative, you had a 3-0, one of two undefeated teams, starting to blow up and build. What is your message to the team? How do you toe the line of playing with confidence and getting caught into the hype?
NICK SIRIANNI: Sure, yeah. That's something, when you're concerned about getting better every single day, your sole focus is how do I get better, how do I get better, how do I get better, it is easy to block out noise, whether that's people telling you how good you are or how bad you are.
A clip we showed today was of Tiger Woods. That is what we showed in our team meeting today. When he was at the top of his game, playing as good of golf as anybody has ever played, ever, right, he was still obsessed with getting better. He says that, I'm obsessed with getting better, I'm obsessed with being the best.
That's a guy that was playing the best golf of anybody ever. What a great example for us, right? We can learn so many good things from what not to do and what to do. Last week it was a Kobe Bryant film. This week it was a Tiger Woods film of just how am I going to improve my swing today to make sure that I'm getting better even though I'm playing pretty good right now?
I want them to know that aim doing that. There's things that happened in that game that I'm not comfortable with. There's things I'm obsessed with getting better as the head coach to make sure that we're prepared to play and the different things.
So first we got to live that as coaches. We got to preach that through our word-of-mouth. Then other great people like Tiger Woods' word-of-mouth, then accomplish that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports