The Eagles were able to secure a win in their season opener against the Cowboys, 24-20, but it was far from a clean game. Head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to reporters well after midnight thanks to the weather delay, and talked about the areas they need to work on, what he saw from Jalen Hurts and the passing game, and why he had confidence in Jake Elliott to make a 58 yard field goal.
Here’s what the head coach had to say:
On the penalties and ejection
“Yeah, obviously, we had some personal fouls today. I want these guys to play with great energy, great tenacity while doing it, within the rules of the game. So we’ll address that. We talked about that, obviously, at halftime because I felt like that’s a really good offense and every one of their drives in that first half that resulted in points were all penalties.
Now, a PI, that’s different. That’s in the heat of the game. Those are going to happen. But I know we had one with Nolan [Smith] and one with JC [Jalen Carter], and that creates short fields for an offense. Again, we want to be there. We want to have great energy, tenacity, all those different things, but we’ve got to do it within the rules of the game, and we will address that. We’ll go through that, but we’ve got to get better in that scenario. We need that guy on the field. He’s a really good player.”
Sirianni wouldn’t talk about his conversation with Jalen Carter after his ejection, and wouldn’t reveal what they do from a disciplinary standpoint, but admitted it’s something they as coaches need to fix. He reiterated that all of those conversations will stay in-house, but the team needed him on the field against a good Cowboys offense.
“I thought Jordan [Davis] got some good pressures. Moro [Ojomo], I’ll have to watch the tape there, but I know he played stout in there. Gabe Hall came in and gave us some good reps. But, we need Jalen Carter on the field and, like I said, we will keep everything in-house, but we have to get all these things corrected as a whole. As you guys know, I want them– you see how I coach with emotion, and I want them to play with emotion, and that’s what I kind of say all the time is you have to do it within the rules of the game. We need everybody out there to help us be successful.”
On Kevin Patullo’s playcalling
“Man, I mean the first half, right? I think what you saw that first half was three possessions, three touchdowns. So obviously, a really good start. Can’t start much better than that. I thought he called it really well.
Again, the communication. Kevin and I have been together long enough and through all these things where the communication was great, we did what I wanted us to do in certain situations in game management situations as far as run, pass, or set up or whatever that is. Kevin’s calling it. But obviously, we talked through a lot of those things, and we were on the same page there and I thought he did a good job.“
Sirianni admitted that the offense stalled a bit coming out of the long weather delay, and said that’s something they would go back and look at, because neither team scored points after taking the field to finish the game.
On special teams
Sirianni said that he has a lot of confidence in Jake Elliott and that after charting his kicks all week, they felt comfortable that he could hit a field goal from 58 yards. The head coach talked about how resilient Elliott has been throughout his career and how he’s so mentally tough in how he approaches the ups and downs.
“Michael Clay just did a great job with his plan today, and Joe Pannunzio and Tyler Brown, they did a great job of their plan and our kicker, Braden [Mann] and Jake [Elliott] did a great job of placing the ball where it needed to. Our coverage units, I was really pleased with how we defeated blocks and how we tackled when we had to tackle because Braden put some placements on some balls that were really good. So that was really good. But like I said, a lot to clean up. Some positives, some negatives, more negatives than I would like, but some weird circumstances tonight, and I’m glad we came out with the wind.”
On the secondary play
Sirianni didn’t want to go into exactly what their plan was for Cowboys’ receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, but the head coach said he has a lot of respect for them and QB Dak Prescott. And while they were able to lock them up at times, Lamb still had over 100 yards and several big drops.
“I knew coming into this first game that there’s going to be a little bit more missed tackles than normal. There’s going to be a ball on the ground and it just happened to be by them and not us. There’s going to be drops both by the offense and by the defense because you block and you block destruct live in practice. But those things, when you’re getting hit and tackled, those become live.”
The head coach went on to say that when he was looking at the past several season openers, he noticed a lot of drops – and not necessarily by the Eagles. But, he explained that the drops include those by the defense in potential takeaway situations. Sirianni pointed to a few missed opportunities on Thursday night by Quinyon Mitchell, Byron Young, and Reed Blankenship – although he admitted Reed’s might’ve been a tough one to get.
“But those are some of the things that happened in the first game and you’re just thankful coming out of the first game – I’m thankful that you can correct a win. There’s a lot to correct.”
On Jalen Hurts and the passing game
“I thought [Jalen Hurts] played really efficient and I thought he played really well, and he’s a big reason why we won that football game tonight, the game that he played. Again, I know that it’ll say that we threw for 152 yards. ‘What’s going on? Why didn’t we throw [more]?’ But, Jalen played really efficiently and really [well] from what I saw and made plays with his legs, his mind, and with his arm.”
Sirianni emphasized that he’ll need to watch the tape before being able to give a more in-depth assessment, but overall felt Hurts played an efficient game. When asked about the passing game, and the lack of targets for A.J. Brown, the head coach lauded the Cowboys game plan and the corners.
“They did a good job of matching some of our routes. They did a good job of matching some things and taking away A.J. We had some different things to him that Jalen [Hurts] had to get through some progressions, and I think Jalen did a really nice job getting through his progressions tonight and then made some plays with his legs as well.”
Sirianni went on to say that they’ve won so many games thanks to their four-minute offense, and being aggressive puts Brown, and others, in better position.
“I thought we were aggressive and A.J. got a ball that set us up for a third-and-three that helped us win the football game. So, when we talk about roles, I tell those guys there’s going to be games like this is going to happen, but to be what we want to be. A.J.’s obviously going to have to be involved more in the offense, but some games go this way. I get that will be a story and everything like that, but there are games that go this way. Look at [DeVonta Smith] Smitty in 2022 against Detroit. A.J. has, whatever, eight for 155 yards, and then Smitty has zero, and then the next game he has eight for 175 yards and a touchdown. So, that’s the way it goes. I know that A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert are selfless, very selfless, and they want to do everything they can do for the team to win.”
The head coach also wanted to highlight Jahan Dotson’s big third down catch and how impactful he was on Thursday. Sirianni admitted that he knows the stories will all be about Brown only having one target, but wanted to make sure Dotson got the attention he deserves for having a great game.
Other notables
- He lauded Zack Baun’s effort on the long run by Cowboys’ RB Miles Sanders, calling it a seven-point tackle by Baun because a few plays later they had a forced fumble and prevented a touchdown. Sirianni’s message all week was to play with relentless effort and Baun showed that.
- In addition to being more disciplined, Sirianni also said that they need to do more work so they are on the same page. Operationally, they had to burn a timeout in the second half, which is something that really frustrates the head coach.
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