Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni took the podium Thursday afternoon ahead of the team’s practice after regrouping after the long travel back from Brazil. The fourth-year head coach shared with the media how he and the staff will navigate this peculiar 2024 schedule for the team with lack of home games in the first half, how a surprise decision at the linebacker position was handled, and what they need to do to pick up the win this week against Atlanta.
The presser opened up fittingly with an update on how newly acquired linebacker Devin White handled the news that he would not be a starting linebacker for the team, despite the Eagles signing him to a $3 million prove it deal in the offseason.
“All my conversations with the guys (are) private, I know you guys can respect that,” Sirianni stated. “He’ (White) has been a great teammate and has done everything that has been required of him. I have a lot of respect for him. We are going to need him. We are going to need him this year. It’s a long football season. Obviously, Zack (Baun) and Nakobe (Dean) are our linebackers, but Devin is going to need to contribute this year if we want to go where we want to go, but that goes for all the guys who are one snap away from going in.”
It certainly has been one of the biggest surprises to start the season considering White has been named to a Pro Bowl and won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay as their staunch defense held Kansas City to just nine points in a 31-9 victory back in 2021.
Moving on to this season’s schedule, it definitely has quirks and not very fan or even player friendly. Beginning with an international game on a Friday night is not a typical start for a team, but the Eagles follow up with their Monday Night Football Game in Week 2, which is welcomed because of the long travel to Brazil, but then it’s a short week next week as they travel to New Orleans for a traditional but rare 1 p.m. game featuring the Eagles, and then another road game in Tampa before returning home on October 13 for their lone home game in the month of October.
Of the Eagles first eight games of the season, just two of them will be true home games at Lincoln Financial Field. Sirianni said that he and his staff will be diligently work on creating the best possible schedule for the players and coaches to stay fresh.
“Being with Frank (Reich) in Indy, I’ve been doing this for a while now. Every schedule is different. What are you doing for a Monday Night game? After that, you debrief, you talk about what you really like, you go over it with your coaches, your leadership counsel and then with your players and every year we have had these unique schedules. Is our schedule and process perfect? No. You are constantly trying to get it better and do different things. Fortunately, we’ve played a lot of Monday Night Football games here. We’ve had a lot of discussions. Trying to put ourselves in best position to win. Then you do that with Thursday Night games, games on Christmas. Brazil was new. Didn’t have a real good plan for that, but it worked out.”
Sirianni altered the Eagles’ practice schedule this week because of how the first two weeks are laid out for his team, but he made it clear that he will always look to adapt.
“One of the worst things I hate is if a coach does this…”Well, we have always done it that way.” Stupid. How do you get better? We talked about it and felt like where we are going and I’m going to keep the why’s in, but we are not ever afraid to change different things whether it’s schedules or schemes. Core values, those are set in stone and will go back to them during good time and hard times.“
As we covered here on PSN the good and bad of the team’s performance in Week 1, Sirianni made it clear that he or the team wouldn’t blame the slick field in Brazil for some of the mishaps on both sides of the ball.
“Both teams played on same field. I don’t want to say too much on how I feel about the field,” Sirianni said.
“Missed tackles happened, did some of them happen because guys slipped, yes. But it also goes to how you approach the running back…same thing for WR out of break…you know the field is slippery so you still have to go about it better with more detailed footwork to avoid that.”
Sirianni continued by stating, “We evaluate the approach on the tackles or slipping in a route. Evaluating hard off that tape. It was a great example for us because there are going to be adversities for us this year, we have no control over. Have to put it out of your mind and control the controllables.”
Something the Eagles can control are the turnovers. Sirianni pointed out that they need to clean up the turnovers and they were extremely fortunate they came out with a win despite being negative in the turnover battler last week.
“We can’t be in the negative in the turnover differential. We were the only team in the NFL that lost the turnover battle and won the game. That’s not sustainable. Taking the football away is key and we missed too many tackles. The details, you heard me say that. We will be doing drills on tackling better today. When you want to be the best in the world at something it’s about doing the basics better, nothing fancy. Who tackles better, who blocks better, who catches better? That’s football wherever you go at whatever level.”
Lastly, the Eagles are preparing for a familiar face at quarterback as Kirk Cousins makes yet another appearance in South Philly. This time with a new team in Atlanta. Sirianni knows he and his staff and team need to be ready for Cousins and dangerous running back Bijan Robinson.
“Cousins has been an unbelievable football player for long time. I have a lot of respect for him and we will need to be ready. We can’t control how he’s feeling. We need to be ready for the player we know who he is. He’s a heck of player and need to be ready because he could make teams look bad with his talent.”
On Robinson, Sirianni says he reminds him of Eagles running back Saquon Barkley when he would prep his team heading into a Giants week.
“I showed tape today on how elusive he is, including hist first touchdown last year which was play 11 against Carolina. A little swing pass and he makes two guys miss and runs through another for his first score. He’s a very good player. It felt like today in team meeting I was showing them clips of Saquon. He (Robinson) is quick and has good hands. We need to tackle better than we did last week to contain him.”
The Eagles and Falcons kickoff at 8:15 p.m. on Monday Night Football to conclude Week 2 of the NFL season.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Carla Carniel
