Eagles 20, Browns 16
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: No, just excited. Just excited to get the win.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Just excited to get the win, yeah. It's hard to win in this league, so we're excited get the win. Our fans created a couple false starts that really helped us win this football game.
But just excited to get the win and appreciate The Linc support.
Q. (Regarding next week.)
NICK SIRIANNI: It's damn hard to win in this league. Man, they got some really good football players over there. I know Coach Stefanski is a hell of a football coach.
So it's hard to win. We'll stay hungry, humble, look at the things we messed up and we got to fix. Did we play like a championship level team today? No, not by any means. We had mistakes that first and foremost as always are going to be on me.
We'll get those cleaned up. We'll be hard on the guys tomorrow, you know, based off the things, and we'll celebrate the things we did well and be hard on the things we didn't do well.
All that matters is that we get better from this, and so excited about the win. You know, I thought a lot of the guys played really good games today.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: You know what? I mean, you guys keep talking about it and we have two -- defense started fast as shit, right? They started as fast as you possible. Sorry.
Defense started fast. Like you guys say this and it's like slow start. We'll say it on the offense. The defense started fast. You know what? We started slow. First two series we didn't score, but then they put their head down and went down and got points and then they did it again.
So I don't want that to be in their heads. We didn't execute. We didn't call good enough plays and didn't score early on, but we scored and get up 10-nothing.
So I think as a team we started well. Just can start a little faster offensively. We'll keep working on that and keep trying to put them in plays that they execute well, put the ball in our playmaker's hands and let Jalen go to work. I thought Jalen played an unbelievable game today.
Yeah, we'll get on track. It will turn because we are working hard at it and players are working hard at it.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: I was having fun. I was having fun and kind of got some feedback from it the guys of the sense of we need you back, Nick. We need your energy, your focus. We need your -- I got that from a couple players.
You know, when I'm operating, having fun, I think that that breeds to the rest of the football team. You know, if I want the guys to celebrate and be themselves after big plays, then I should probably do that myself, right.
There are times for that and times not for that. I have to have wisdom and discernment of when to do that and not to do that. I think -- I was kind of talking about and forth, I think Newsom and Denzel Ward are phenomenal football players. Denzel Ward made a really good play there.
I told Jacob that he's only allowed to get jerseys of players on other teams that are superstars. I don't want to see him like with mediocre players. He can get a Denzel Ward jersey. I'll let him do that.
That guy is a phenomenal football player. I played college football with a bunch of guys from Nordonia where he went to high school. Just got a lot of respect for him.
That's out of fun.
Rodney is the other guy. I love Rodney obviously. Man, Rodney means a lot to me. I think back about Rodney talking to our football team in 2000 -- I feel like I think I said something this week how Rodney said something in 2021. I have so much for Rodney McLeod, so much respect and gratitude towards him.
He was talking to me, I was talking back to him. It was just a lot of the fun.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: A little bit during the bye, a little bit during the game.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know -- yeah, obviously we'll keep stuff that -- I'll never try to give a competitive advantage to anybody else.
You know, I'll say this: I made the call on third and one. Nobody else but me. You know, like I said to you, I did that on defense one time as well. You know, made a call on defense.
Didn't work out just so you know. I'll put that out there. That wasn't on Vic. I won't tell you which play. I'm going to do that from time to time. This time it didn't work. That's nobody else but me.
Then we got to do a couple things a little bit different of how we -- 95 is really good at blocking kicks. 95, man, holy crap. That guy is something else. Myles Garrett, I've never seen him -- maybe in 2020. Yeah, I saw him up close and personal in 2020. Myles Garrett.
But that dude is something else. He's as advertised. You know, we watched him all week and we thought about him all week. I don't think anybody thought of Myles Garrett as much as we did. We had a plan for him an offense and then he makes a play on special teams.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Nope. Nope. That was the quarterback. That was Kellen and Jalen, and...
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: You know, something that they looked at. Good job by Jalen and AJ talking at the line of scrimmage, figuring out what the best play to go to was. A little bit of a check there.
You know, good players making great plays. AJ has got -- yeah, you can ask them. If they want to tell you they can tell you. Two guys made a great -- AJ, I was just telling Jacob, my son, that AJ is a guy that has probably caught so many footballs in his life and so many baseballs in his life.
Jalen threw an unbelievable ball. But AJ's ball skills for a deep ball, I think about the pylon for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. You remember that one, buddy? I think about today and I think about the two today. The guy has his arm racked. Like this guy, I can't imagine how many pop flies his dad threw to him when he was a little kid and how many times he actually had pop flies in baseball.
Man, he has unbelievable ball skills to make a catch because of how much he's worked at it. He should trust his preparation because he's caught so many balls like that.
Then Jalen has worked so hard to throw pretty deep balls. He made a perfect throw, perfect catch. I thought Newsom had really good coverage on the play.
Kobe Bryant used to say all the time good offense beats good defense every day of the week. They had good defense on, but we had a really good offense and our playmakers made a play when we needed it most.
We had that mindset there of, hey, let's not give this ball back. Don't put our defense in a position where they got to stop them in two-minute. Kellen called a perfect game at the end of that game.
You know, he threw it when he needed to throw it, ran it when he needed to run it, our guys executed. They did a good job stopping the run. Jim Schwartz, I can't say enough good things about Jim Schwartz. I think this city would agree that he's a hell of a defensive coordinator.
Yeah, I can't tell you how much respective and how good of a defensive coordinator he has been for as long as he's been.
Our guys made a play in a four-minute scenario. We've lost a couple games in four minutes where we have given the ball back to the offense. We had the mindset of, hey, we're going to end with this ball in our hands. We did that because of great individual plays at the end of the day by Jalen and AJ.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know, we've done a great job in red zone defense. Our guys work hard at it. So I actually put my head down on third and 8. I don't know what's wrong with me. I put my head down on plays. Sometimes I can watch them; sometimes I can't watch them. I'm not superstitious, so it's nothing to do with that.
But, you know, third and 8 I put my head down so I don't know what happened there.
How many did they have? Was it one or two? Just one.
Again, we got them behind the sticks. I'd really say the crowd was critical there, you know, because they had a false start and then they had a false start again. The crowd noise was critical right there of just the -- it was so loud there, and it caused them some penalties. Got them behind the sticks and played good red zone defense. I thought Nolan Smith made a hell of a play.
I've seen Deshaun Watson be Superman before. He had some plays today that I'm like, oh, man, that looked like Deshaun Watson, and he makes a play where they run a zone read and Nolan levels it out and makes the play, and then I think it was Coop that cleaned it up. Was it Coop?
So that was a huge, huge, huge play on second and four. I think it was Coop on the play before that came across and made a play where they had a zone -- an RPR there.
So, again, Vic did a good job. Again, I can't tell you how excited I am that Vic Fangio is our defensive coordinator. He called a good game. At the end of the day how many points they score on offense? Nine. I mean, Vic did an unbelievable job and we made some plays.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, you know, we thrive off the crowd when they cheer for us. That's all I'll say. When our crowd cheers for us we thrive off them. You know, we hear them when they boo. We don't necessarily like it. I don't think that's productive for anybody.
When they cheer for us and we got them rolling, we love it.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: I guess that means we didn't work at all at it.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Because ya'll are making a big deal about it. Guys, we're going to figure it out. We're going to fix it. We know how to score in the past. Like we get it. You guys have a job to do and you're going to fixate on one thing and, oh, they haven't started fast and turned the ball over.
We got it. We're going do everything we can do to fix it. I don't want that to be in their heads that's why I'm basically telling you guys we got it. We'll figure it out. Sometimes you get things in your head and you continue -- and it kind of works there.
The defense started their ass off. The defense started their ass off. It was 10-nothing to start the football game off and the defense didn't let up a play. So they played their ass off. They started fast, right?
We'll get to figured out on offense. We'll get it figured out on offense.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: I have so many memories of being on the practice field. I love football. I love football so much. Like I just told the guys this, the way I try to -- my vision for the football team, our accountability, teamwork, toughness, our -- Mike I appreciate you a asking me this question -- our detail, it's how I'm trying to raise my family. I love this game so much.
It teaches people so many different things. This is the greatest team sport there is.
So I have so many -- my dad, mom and dad are at every single game. I mean, every single home game they drive the six hours to be here. Like this game is why me and my brothers -- I'm going to get emotional. This game is why my brothers and I are so close and my dad and I are so close and my mom is a football mom.
Like this game means so much to me. It's like -- tell me your question one more time.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: Why do I have them here? I have so many visions of why I love these game, being at Southwestern High School when I was these guys' age whether I'm at practice or the ball boy on the side, and my memories of them.
AJ came to one of his baseball games. These guys are going to love AJ for life. Jalen gave him a jersey last year that you have this your room. So it's so important to me that -- Taylor will be the only one that doesn't play football. Unless you want to, baby.
But it's so important that they fall in love with this game the way I fell in love with this game, and so that's why they're up here. Like I can't bring them -- they have school when we're at practice. It's not like high school football.
These are the moments. Like we're going to go on the field after this and play catch together. These are the moments they're going to remember, football games. So Mike, I really appreciate you asking this question. That's why I bring them up here, so they can get a taste of what I used to get when I was a little -- and Mike Sirianni and Jay Sirianni used to get when my dad was a high school football coach growing up.
Q. (No microphone.)
NICK SIRIANNI: I think we did some really good things. We have to find a way to sustain drives and get some explosives here and there. I think we got some explosives. I don't know exactly the number, but it felt like some drives were going wrong early. I thought Jalen operated at a very high level. He played a really solid game.
I thought a lot of the guys did. Grant Calcaterra; what can I say about him? Steps in and makes some unbelievable -- that's a team. It takes everybody. It takes every single body on this team to win a football game in the NFL. I think that we showed that today.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports