Q. How does the addition of Bradley help?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he has a lot of experience, both on the outside corner and at the nickel spot. We are a little banged up there right now, so he gives us some good depth and a guy who has done it before and we are excited to have him on this the fairway.
Q. How long do you think it will take him to kind of get familiar with the defense and all that?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know, I don't know. We've had guys ready to play all sorts of different -- different times. And so you never really can tell. The plan is still being worked out, right. Obviously we don't have our game plan finished yet. We still have multiple days to work on that.
So you know, we'll see. We'll see how long it takes. I know he's a really sharp guy, and so you know, we'll see. I mean, everybody is a little bit different though.
Q. In reference to that third and 11 where Brian wanted to pass and you decided to run the ball, how often does that happen, whether over the course of a game or a season?
NICK SIRIANNI: 16 times. Next question. (Laughter) no, I mean, I don't know.
Q. Does it happen regularly if a game? Is it normal?
NICK SIRIANNI: What I don't think people understand is we go through this process together, right. As we come in here, like the offense has not changed very much as far as the schemes that we're running from Shane to Brian.
So like I was hired here to be an offensive coach, and so I have a vision of what I want it to look like. I'm in every offensive meeting, both game planning meeting and offensive meeting. We think everything together and talk through everything together. And so obviously just like with Shane, I'm sitting there and talking to him, it's no different -- if you want the answer that I think you might be looking for, is it's no different from Shane and myself with Brian than this one. I just told y'all -- I gave you some information that maybe didn't come up last year but it's the same dynamic. So 16 times.
Q. Getting back to Bradley's presence, is that anything to do with trying to get James back more on the outside?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know, again, he has experience and we're banged up right there right now. So Howie did a great job of going and finding a guy we thought was pretty good last year when we went in to play them when he was in New Orleans.
Yeah, gives you more flexibility to do different things. We are confident in James at all positions, or pardon me, at the outside corner and at the nickel position but it does, it just gives you more flexibility there.
Q. Haason had his first sack of the season, obviously had a big year last year. When you have a guy who maybe from an individual standpoint isn't getting the numbers that he might not want or isn't performing --
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, I would only say that first part but go ahead.
Q. Do you ever have to handle that? Do you leave that to guys generally? Do you ever step in and say, hey?
NICK SIRIANNI: Sure, I'm sorry always in constant communication with all our guys. That's the piece of connecting. I'm trying to find ways to connect with everybody, and that connection isn't only when things are good but also when bad, right.
You can't be a tight team if you're only in good times, tight, right. It's good times and bad times, and I'm not saying that's a bad time for anything because when you ask me that question, my initial thought is he's still getting pressures. He's still pressuring the quarterbacks. Sacks just come in waves, and they tend to come in waves. He got his first sack. But that doesn't mean he has not changed the game because of the way he's been putting pressure on the quarterback. It's just the first time he actually got him down to the ground in this particular case.
But those things come in waves. But I think I answered your question as far as the question part with in good times and bad times. I don't believe that this is a bad time with Haason but I'm always finding ways to talk to the guys about different things.
Q. How does your interaction change with the self-defensive coordinator change on a weekly basis with someone you're getting to know?
NICK SIRIANNI: I don't think it's the get-to-know. It's the get-go to know within the game of football, right. I spent the same amount of time -- I would say I spent about the same amount of time with Gannon in season last year in our second year together as I do with Sean right now.
But there was obviously a catch-up of things that I've had the vision for the defense and different things like that. There was some catch-up to be played; where Gannon and I had a lot of years together, we had to make that up. I couldn't -- we had to get to where we were last year with all our thoughts as far as my thoughts situationally, all these different things that we were last year with Gannon in the off-season, right. So there was more time spent there in that particular case.
Again, I hired Sean to do a job and I think he's doing a great job. Great job but I also have to be very clear of what the description is of the job and what I require in certain situations. So even though I'm hiring him to do a job and I don't want to micromanage by any means, as the head football coach because at the end of the day, everything out there has my name on it.
So it was just more catching him up, trying to do everything we could do to catch up him up to a point where we are not taking a step back when we started this season, and I felt like we worked really hard at that and it showed up in some situational things and some of the things that we've discussed in a positive way.
Q. You mentioned word micromanage there. How do you make sure what you're doing isn't micromanaging and you're allowing those guys to do their jobs?
NICK SIRIANNI: Again, I have to be just very clear what have my job description is, and this is what we say to the players, too. Our job, how do we get better every day. One is high detail in meetings, and that high detail in meetings starts with us as coaches just painting the job description very clear. Here is what I want you to do versus this; here is what I want you to do versus this; here is what I want you to do versus this.
Am I doing more on offense than I am on defense? Yes. But you know, micromanaging and just being very detailed, those are two different things, or a fine line in between them, I don't know.
But again, I want Sean to know how I see it as an offensive point of view, right. I want him to see how -- what it looks like from an offensive point of view because the thing -- one thing that I know is that when I learn defense more and more, or the more -- in my career, when I took another step of learning defenses, I became a better offensive coach. That's my job to do with Sean.
Like I'm trying to give you guy information, but it's not like I'm saying do this right here, right. That's not how that goes down. That's micromanaging in my opinion. Ours is just a constant attempt to get better, and letting me like let them know what I require and what I'm looking for.
So is there times where it is, that I want this? Yeah. But again, I'm the head coach. If that's micromanaging, that; but at the end of the day, like I said, my name is on the product out on the field and that's my job as a head coach.
Q. With brown, he's obviously a young guy who has been able to handle -- I know he's hurt right now or was hurt, but handle the slot or safety moving around. What does it take for a young guy, for you to have a comfort level to give him multiple things, and how unusual is that, I guess?
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, he's very sharp, really sharp guy. And high football IQ. We knew that with him coming in and we knew, you don't want to overload anybody. We don't want to overload a guy playing a certain position. We don't want to overload anybody, Jason, Jay Len. Those are guys that do a lot. We don't want to overload anybody because then you can -- you just give them too much to think about, that's not a good thing. There's a balance in there. It starts with Sydney, his Finca Cortesin is high and he's able to handle a lot. We need his versatility, and that's why we have him here. He's done a nice job handling that and we look forward to getting him back.
Q. What did you see that made Sua a clear top option?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, just his performance of what he's done. Like I said, he played an unbelievable game on Sunday. That's confidence of games that he's played. He didn't play as much last year but in 2021, gave us a lot and even before that, I'm just saying in the time I've been here, he gave us some really good -- we won some big games with him in '21 on that field. We know he has great power. He really can do the things that we require of our guards to do. And so we have a lot of faith in him based off his previous games that he's played but you know, that faith really gets built year-in, year-out. It is a what have you done for me lately. We understand that. So it's built through the practice, right and this is his first opportunity, first extended opportunity to go in a game this season, and I thought did he an outstanding job.
But it's just the weekly, everything is evaluated and it's the weekly product that he's put on the field.
Q. As far as Jason Kelce said on a Podcast yesterday that the league sent a letter to you guys that you're lining up off-sides on the Tush-Push play. What's your reaction?
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, again, anything, we'll just keep our conversations with the league private about anything they said back to us if we turned anything in or anything like that. They do a great job of giving us information and I just want to keep those conversations private with us and the NFL.
We have to make sure, that we don't leave any doubt on the field that we're legal during that play. Like Jason said, there was an emphasis on that this week. I'm not here to argue whether I thought the call was right or wrong on that. Well, I'm always going to think that we're right.
But again, league does a good job of giving us the information. We understand that the referees have a tough job to do. I'm never going to criticize that aspect of it. I know they have got a tough job. Are all the calls going to go the way we want them to go? No. Are they always going to be right? No. But neither is what I do. Yeah, I'll just keep it at that.
Q. You always talk about your process, your fill office five of sticking to your process. Now going across the country, how does that impact the process?
NICK SIRIANNI: Every scenario has a different process that we are constantly trying to perfect. So you can't perfect your process unless you know exactly what your process is, and not only that, take that a step further, and that you're constantly evaluating that process. We know exactly what it is. At the end of us doing it, we evaluate it and say, hey, did we handle this Monday night game, what are suggestions of the players, what are suggestions of the other coaches, what are my thoughts, and how do we tweak what that looks like.
So you know we've had a couple different West Coast trips that we've had here in the past couple years, Las Vegas, Denver, what was last year? Arizona. And so now that -- coming off Arizona, we've had conversations, hey what did we not like what did we like.
I think the biggest difference, without getting too much into it is the Saturday schedule of what we're doing, more so when we, you know, here, maybe leaving a little bit later, but also when we get there and the time change of, they don't need to hear my voice over and over when we get there. So the meetings are a little bit shorter when we get there.
So it's all about that. It's a trial and error thing. Like you know, you feel things like that but that's why you have the evaluation of every process that you have.
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