The Eagles have less than a week before their 2025 NFL season opener against the Cowboys on Thursday night and head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters ahead of practice on Sunday. He spoke about the importance of assigning clear roles, how his relationship with Jalen Hurts has grown, and the team’s mentality looking forward.
Sirianni didn’t want to comment too much about the Micah Parsons trade, noting that it’s something they pay attention to because it affects the game-planning, but said the Cowboys have other players they’ll have to shift their focus to.
Here’s what else the head coach had to say:
On assigning roles
He talked a bit about his annual meeting with players where he tells each guy his very specific role on the team. Sirianni said that the message and the roles may change, but overall, he feels it’s a really important meeting for them to have.
“I think that’s an important meeting for multiple reasons. One, I think it’s very important that everyone’s job description is very clear, and it’s very clear what we expect from our players, because it’s hard to hold our players accountable if it’s not clear. And, I want their teammates to hear those too, so they can encourage them and hold them accountable, as well, within their role.”
Later, Sirianni was asked about several of the starting roles that have yet to be named, and he noted that while that’s how it appears — with three position battles listed in the initial depth chart — inside the building, they pretty much have everything settled. The head coach has never been one to give up a perceived competitive advantage and that hasn’t changed.
On his relationship with Jalen Hurts
“I feel like we’ve always had a really good relationship, and so, it’s just like any relationship that the more time you spend with each other, the more you put into that relationship, the better that relationship is going to be. So, yeah, I value that relationship that we have together. And, like I said, it’s been growing as we’ve been here, and we’ve worked on it since we’ve been here — we’ve been through ups, we’ve been through downs, as a team, and those are things that continue to help you grow.”
Sirianni went on to say that experiencing pain together, competing against each other, spending time together, and being selfless all lend to a closer relationship.
“I’ve talked about that at length with Jalen [Hurts], about how selfless — you know, Jalen was highly efficient as a quarterback last year and won a lot of games. But, I think he has to take a lot — I think there’s a lot of talk, like, ‘Oh, he didn’t throw for this many touchdowns or this many yards,‘ well he was super efficient and he won a lot of games. And, I always admire how selfless he is in those moments, and in those situations, because all he cares about is winning.”
On the team’s mentality
Sirianni said they aren’t focused on defending their title or anything else regarding the Super Bowl win, and are strictly preparing to play the Cowboys. Still, he said that they have a lot of leaders on the team who are making sure that everyone is doing what is needed.
“What we did in the past is not important. What we hope to do is not important. It’s just about what we are trying to do each day to get ourselves better to hopefully be playing our best football by the end of the year.”
Other notables
- As far as why his team is 4-0 in season openers, Sirianni explained that they do a good job during camp to emphasize winning the turnover battle which has helped them in previous Week 1s. He also shows prior season openers and highlights the things they did right, and areas they struggled, to try and prevent making those same mistakes.
- The head coach was asked about Adoree’ Jackson and what he does to make things difficult for receivers, and Sirianni pointed out that Jackson is always in the hip pocket of guys and is close to the catch point. He also thinks Jackson has a good knack for the football, the CB is also competitive and scrappy.
- Sirianni didn’t want to go into all the details about how they pick captains or why they chose eight, but noted the simple answer is that the players voted on it.
- The head coach talked about Marcus Epps and getting him caught up as he re-joins the team, and Sirianni mentioned that when they were considering bringing him back, they spoke to Reed Blankenship who highlighted how helpful Epps was to his development a couple years ago.
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