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00:00players up in bubble wrap, Joe. Why would you, why would you want these baseball players to play?
00:05Sometimes I do. All right, let's talk more football. Of course, you can wait on the fills and
00:09clinching the division last night at 2-1-5, 5-9-2, 94-94. A lot of Eagles on the table as well as
00:15Nick Sirianni joins us every single, well, typically Tuesdays at this time, two days
00:19removed from the game. And Nick is brought to us by Bud Light. You can pre-game with Ava Graham
00:23at the Grog. Great spot, by the way, the Grog in Bryn Mawr this Sunday before the game versus
00:28Tampa Bay and win tickets to the next Eagles home game and merchandise from Bud Light. We welcome
00:33the head coach of the 2-1-1 Eagles, Nick Sirianni. Good morning, Nick. Hey, good morning, guys.
00:38Hi, coach. I'd like to start by saying congrats to the Phillies, Coach Thompson and the Phillies
00:43organization for winning, excuse me, the division yesterday. It was awesome. Got my kids wearing,
00:50I know my kids were wearing Bryce Harper shirts this morning. Nice. Awesome. Pumped about that.
00:55Really excited for their run in this October. Yeah, they've done it two years in a row. It's
01:01been quite a journey and a lot of good until the end, obviously. A lot of great stuff from them
01:05in October. Nick, let's talk about your squad. There's a lot going on and, you know, in the
01:11midst of a win that has been very scrutinized in many ways, you guys got a win on the road
01:19against an undefeated team in a hostile environment with a tremendous amount of adversity,
01:24including some significant injuries before and during the game.
01:27What is that feeling of satisfaction like when you win a game under those circumstances?
01:32First of all, any game in the NFL that you win, you're ecstatic about. You always want to clean
01:37up the mistakes, but it's hard to win, so you take a lot of pride in that. There's a lot of
01:43work, obviously, that goes into that. That place is a tough place to play. It's loud. It's a good
01:52environment. We had a lot of Eagles fans there, though. That was pretty special, but that's a
01:58tough environment to play. I think Holly told me a couple times that they hadn't won there since
02:042007 now. I know last time I was at a game there was 2019 with the Colts, and we got beat up pretty
02:13good there, so anytime you go down there to get a win, it's big. That's a good football team that
02:19had put a lot of points on the board, that had won games pretty convincingly the two weeks prior
02:24to that. On top of that, getting the guys in the play, the backups in that had to come in and play,
02:34and stepping up the play, it was just a good team win. I said to the guys,
02:41there was a lot of things on display. How we handled adversity from the week before.
02:46We fixed a lot of things that we had messed up the week before, and that's part of adversity.
02:53If you can take the adversity and get better from it, that's huge. I felt like we did that
02:59while still having things to clean up. We always talk about what people's role are on the team,
03:06and to see some of these guys that you tell their role is to be ready when their time comes,
03:11and then they were ready, and they put the work in to be ready, that's an awesome feeling.
03:18I thought we knew that team was tough, and we know we're a tough football team,
03:22and we went out there and played physically tough against a physically tough football team,
03:27and that was on display. The last thing on that game that you really think about is how much of a
03:33team that just felt just such togetherness on that football team. The offense, the defense
03:40saying to the offense, we got you. You should have seen it. It was awesome on the sideline
03:46of how many times the guys was telling each other, I got you, or if we have a failed conversion,
03:50they look at me and say, I got you. It was just such good team football that that team,
04:00this 2024 Eagles team, got tighter, a lot tighter just from that experience there.
04:08We're going to continue to look back on this, not that you dwell on this because you move on,
04:12but it's such a great example for other things moving forward.
04:16You know, Nick, you know the deal. The town's buzzing about some of the decisions from within
04:20the game. You know that. Let's talk about the first that everyone's talking about. To not
04:27kick the field goal, or I'll say go for a higher percentage conversion on fourth down with a QB
04:32sneak. Ultimately, I'm going to ask you why not, but I'm going to frame it this way. 14 seconds
04:38left, and I would say, and I think most people would acknowledge, a quarterback that had been
04:42struggling up until that point in the game. So with those two realities, why not either just
04:48kick it or run the sneak in that circumstance? Sure, yeah. You know, we did what we did because
04:55we felt like it gave us the best chance to win the football game at the end of the day.
04:59You know, we thought that if we didn't score on the play, we'd have another opportunity there.
05:05You know, not to get into all the clock things, but we had a timeout. We've had some opportunities
05:13there on the next play if it didn't score. We've had a game against the Falcons in 21,
05:23where we scored with nine seconds left to go in the half. We had a game against the Rams last
05:29year where we scored with, I think there was six seconds left to go in the half. We threw a fade,
05:37and they passed interference. There was no time on the clock, and then the quarterback stayed
05:40from there to get it. So we felt good about the play call that it had a chance to score. It didn't.
05:46So I fully understand the criticisms, but if it scores, we're not talking about it. If it doesn't
05:56score, it's on me. And that's the price that you pay when you're the head coach, and I fully
06:03accept that and gladly accept that. Because I know if you look at our track record in those
06:09scenarios, we've been pretty darn good, and it's helped lead us to a lot of wins.
06:15And so, again, you take everything into consideration. And you know what? There's
06:21been some ones and some tight games this year that have been scrutinized because of the result.
06:28And that's okay. And that's okay. But everything, every single thing I'm doing is trying to help
06:34this football team win. And we've been pretty darn successful at it, but it didn't work this
06:42last week. So I got to deal and live with the criticism. Nick, when key players are out
06:48in certain moments, like, obviously, Devontae eventually, AJ, Lane Johnson, does that make you
06:56more inclined to be aggressive because you think we may not get the ball down the field that often
07:01in this game? Again, depending on how the game's going, depending on how the game's going is always
07:09taken into consideration. And sometimes what's taken into consideration, I think those are good
07:15points. Other things that are taken into consideration is how the defense is playing.
07:22The defense was stuffing them. And so maybe you go for it, you get a 7-3 lead, and then you just
07:31keep playing defense. But if you don't get it, the defense continues to play their butts off.
07:36And the fourth down, I think we had a fourth and two early in the first half that we converted,
07:47that you could say also there did take points there, but it's not talked about because you
07:52converted it. And that's okay. I mean, that's just the way it is. And so you do that for multiple
07:58reasons. And one of them is, yeah, who's on the field? How many chances are you going to get
08:03going forward? How many times are you going to be down here again?
08:06How's the defense playing? And when the defense is playing that good, if you give them a little
08:10bit shorter of a field, you know you're feeling good that they're going to stop them. All those
08:16things are taken into play. Again, like I said, you take the analytical numbers, you take your
08:22players. First and foremost, you take your players. Why are some coaches not aggressive
08:28in certain situations? They might not trust their players in those particular cases. I trust
08:34our players. I trust the guys that we have on this football team. I've seen them make these plays
08:39over and over and over again in our plus territory. I don't remember what the stat was last
08:45year, last week that somebody gave me, but it was like 79 times we've went forward in our plus
08:49territory. Well, you don't do that unless you have ultimate, ultimate, ultimate faith in your
08:55players. You take all that into account. Again, anytime something like that doesn't go right,
09:06you always look at it and you study it and you try to get better from it.
09:10Nick, how often over the course of the game do you call the play?
09:14John, we might have ran a fullback dive to you, too, if you've still been there. That plays out
09:18of the commission a little bit now. We ran one. We ran one. I gained one yard and I did a terrible
09:27job. My head was down. And then the league said no more fullbacks. No, I didn't deserve it,
09:33coach. But my question was, how often over the course of the game do you call the play?
09:40I'm not going to get into this percentage of time. The way we game plan is collaborative.
09:50Every staff I've ever been on has been that way, from when I was the quarterback coach,
09:54to when I was the receiver coach, to when I was the coordinator, to when I was the head coach.
09:59It's such a collaborative effort. That's why football is so awesome. You go through this
10:06week-long grind for one game, and it's so collaborative throughout. Well, that's how a
10:14game is, too. Ultimately, Kellen is calling the plays and dialing up the plays so I can do other
10:22things. But if there's a scenario where I say something that I want to go for it, do something,
10:32there's scenarios where Kevin Petullo, my assistant head coach and past game coordinator,
10:38will say, hey, what do you think about this in this scenario? And Kellen will call it.
10:42Jeff Stoutland has great suggestions. Chase and Michael have great suggestions during the game.
10:47We have a lot of guys that have been coordinators and called plays on our staff.
10:53And so you're getting that feedback constantly, and it's thought out. It's like, oh yeah,
10:59let's do that in this particular case. You take players, John, you know how it is. You go to the
11:05sideline and you say, hey, I'm feeling this ISO play because I know I can knock this guy on his
11:10ass. And so you listen to players in those scenarios. It's such a collaborative effort.
11:16Just like in a team on the field, it's not, hey, Saquon scored that 65-yard touchdown,
11:22way to go, only Saquon. It's a collaborative effort. It took Fred Johnson on the backside
11:28leveling his guy. It took the receivers downfield blocking, and that's the same way it's called
11:34plays. So I won't get into the percentages of times. I'm never going to tell you when I call
11:39the play and it scored a touchdown. I'll always tell you when I call the play that didn't work.
11:45I'm always going to tell you that because that's my job as the head football coach,
11:49and that comes with scrutiny. And that's okay. That's my job. That's the job of leaders
11:54that aren't the funnest part of the job, but it's what it is.
11:59What changed in the second half of the Saints game for our quarterback? It felt like
12:04there was a difference, like it was smoother, things were more successful.
12:08Jalen, his performance in the second half, why did it feel more even?
12:13Yeah, I thought that the game, he just saw it well. I thought he just saw it well
12:22and was delivering the ball to where it needed to go, throwing hots off of blitzes.
12:31But you know what? He's going to get blamed for the interception because it goes on his stat sheet,
12:41but there's a lot of things that go into that. And he's got to put two hands on the football when he
12:47scrambles. So that fumble was on him, and he'll be the first one to tell you that.
12:51But I thought he was smooth throughout the game. I thought he was in complete control throughout
12:58the game. But I do understand that when you have those two blips on there, regardless of what
13:05circumstances were, it's going to appear that he wasn't. But I really did feel like he operated
13:09well in that entire game. We'd stalled out in the red zone a couple of times, all these different
13:15things. But I thought he saw the field well. I thought in that two-minute drill, what poise
13:25to deliver that ball to Dallas. And the guys did an unbelievable job. Execute John Dodson.
13:31John Dodson doesn't get the stats that Dallas Goddard gets on that catch, but his detail on
13:39the play, absolute perfection. It was perfection. And what's also not, if you go back and look at
13:47that play, Johnny Wilson gets a release. Excuse me. I love Johnny Wilson. Johnny Wilson, he gets
13:53this release on the play. He gets a release on the play that kind of spins the defensive back up,
13:59and the defensive back has to hurry up and catch up to him. Well, sometimes on that play,
14:03that guy falls off that play and makes that play for a 15, 16-yard game. But Johnny beat him so
14:08good off the line of scrimmage that it pulled the guy in so far that Dallas was able to run.
14:13So again, I know you asked me a question about Jalen. I thought he was complete control on
14:17the entire game. But there's some unsung heroes. The offensive line, they're not going to get the
14:22credit. Sometimes the offensive line, they get the credit. You only get talked about when the
14:26sack's given up. Their protection on that play was awesome. And the throw by Jalen was awesome.
14:32Sometimes that ball's behind a guy. I've seen other quarterbacks put that ball behind them,
14:37and he can't really get going with that full head steam of whatever that's called.
14:43Sure. Yeah, the momentum.
14:46Yeah. And so, so many things went into that play that put us down there. And then you get down
14:53there, and then look at that next play. Offensive line did a great job of just bowling off the ball.
15:01And then great Calcaterra lays his body on the line on the slice block on the defensive end,
15:07puts Chase Young down and is laying on the ground in pain. But with his hand up in the
15:12air like number one, like football, freaking awesome guys. I mean, it is awesome. I love
15:19football and I love the, this is rehash that, how that game went and just what a team effort it was
15:26to get that ball in the end zone at the end of the game.
15:28Nick Sirianni here. Two final things, Nick. Number one, Devontae, the hit on him. Are you
15:35more annoyed with the Saints player that hit him or with the refs for not blowing the whistle?
15:40He catches it at the 36. He's not struck until the 31 by that additional defender.
15:47What annoys you more there?
15:49You know, I obviously am just feeling for Devontae that he got hurt on that play. I know this,
15:57the guys, everybody knows that this is their livelihood. And I don't, and I don't think for
16:04one minute that I think, you know, do I think for one minute the referee or the, that player on that
16:09team trying to do that? I don't. So I don't want to, I'll never question somebody's integrity
16:15because they're out, everybody's out there laying their lives on the line to, you know, for the game
16:20that they love. And so I'll never question anyone's integrity on that. All I do, all I can say is
16:26that, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm glad Smitty's feeling good. And, and, um, but it was, it was
16:31brutal. It was hard to watch. It's, it's a hard thing to watch when you, when someone, you know,
16:35I love Smitty on this team, love Smitty. I, he's the toughest guy. He is the toughest guy. I know,
16:41um, forget pound for, you know how they say pound for pound, he's a tough guy. No,
16:44he's just the toughest guy I know. And so I love him and, and I just, you know, I obviously,
16:50uh, feel bad that that happened, but I'm never going to question somebody's integrity in that.
16:54Nick, final thing. I know you're not going to tell us about injuries moving forward,
16:57so I'll just move on. We'll see who plays on Sunday, but I'll, I'll ask you this about trying
17:01to prevent injury or wear and tear. Saquon through three games has 73 touches. If you
17:06extrapolate that for 21 games, which is what it'll probably take to win the Super Bowl,
17:10if you don't get a bye, he's on pace for 511 touches, 511. Do you feel you need to dial him
17:16back a bit? Well, I think I, I don't remember what, where I said this. I do a lot of media,
17:22so I don't know if I said it here, if I did it, I said it in a production meeting, if I said it,
17:26you know, wherever I said this, but you do everything you can do to win each individual
17:32game. Right. Can you imagine if we didn't give them the ball as many times as we did and we lost,
17:36you know what I mean? I think about how that would feel right. Oh my God. We didn't give
17:40Saquon. We tried to, we tried to pull back on Saquon to rest them for the 21 games.
17:45Like you're talking about. And we lost the game. You better win the game. You better win the game.
17:50And, um, and that's our job every single week. So my, what I, the way I look at it guys is we'll
17:56do whatever, if Saquon needs to carry it seven times to win, because we got to throw it a bunch,
18:01then that's, what's got to happen. If Saquon's got to carry it 50 times to win, then we'll give
18:06them to him 50 times where we can make an, uh, where we can make up for that is in practice,
18:12you know, Saquon, how you feel talking to Saquon, how he's feeling pulling back on him in practice.
18:17Um, so that way he can, he's completely fresh. Um, you know what, we got a buy coming up. We
18:23got a buy coming up and I, I just went down the hallway of our coaches and say, Hey, you got a
18:27couple of days off next week. Give me everything you got this week. And I, and I'm teething. I,
18:31they give me everything they got every single week, but we got a buy coming up. Um, and you
18:36know, our job is to win this game without by any means necessary. Also the Saquon is a heck of a
18:42football player. I'm glad he's a Philadelphia Eagle. Nick, good luck versus Tampa Bay. We'll
18:46be watching and look forward to talking after it's over. Thank you, Nick.
18:49Thank you. Thanks coach.
18:49There he is, Eagle's head coach, Nick Sirianni. All right, your reaction to that plus the Phillies,
18:54your reaction to them winning the division. Pretty cool. Red October come and start next
18:57week. We'll talk about it all coming up next on 94 WIPA.