PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | How Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni is handling pressure-packed, make-or-break season

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Nick Sirianni met with reporters recently and discussed topics ranging from the 2023 scars to ceding control of the offense to the Bill Belichick noise. The emotion he felt this offseason? “Joy,” Sirianni said. Zach Berman and Les Bowen discuss the Eagles coach one week away from training camp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good afternoon and welcome to a Monday edition of the PHLY Eagles show. I'm Zach Berman here with Les Bowen as we start the last week before Eagles training camp. There's been much anticipation for this and we're discussing Nick Siriani today. And I'm excited Les is here because of all the people I know, less is best at separating kind of what's real and what's not real. The truth from the fiction from what a head coach says. So Les, thanks for joining us today. Well, thanks for springing me from the old folks home.

It's Cream Corn Day, so. That doesn't sound that bad. So the reason we're talking about Nick Siriani is earlier this summer. I had a chance to sit down with the Eagles head coach, along with a few other reporters. And it's something that the head coach does every year. Les has sat in these sessions quite a bit. And it's a chance when high-sex temperatures are cool, not literally, but, you know, it's a quiet time around the Eagles. You can have some in-depth, reflective conversations with the head coach.

And it kind of gets again, and then you hold it for when training camp begins to kind of get the fan base ready for some of these storylines because for six weeks or so, the offices are closed, the coach is out of town. And obviously this year there was much to discuss, as we mentioned earlier, including the way last season ended, including the pressure that's on Nick Seriani, including seating control of the offense, even the Bill Belichick rumors. There's a story up now on all p.hly.com getting into many of these topics. We'll have a few follow-up stories as the week goes on. But your general impressions of what Nick said and how much do you believe and how much do you believe? much do you think is Nick trying to convince himself or convince us that this is what he thinks? Yeah, it was a very interesting session. I wasn't there, but you provided me with the transcript, and I read your story. It was an excellent story. I wasn't shocked by anything he said. I wasn't terribly surprised. I remain very, very frustrated with his inability to, or his, not inability,

but his refusal to really get into what happened with that extraordinary unparalleled collapse at the end of last season and why that happened because unless we really have a good handle on why it happened, how do we know that things are fixed? He wants us to just sort of,

well, things are fixed now, different team. You know, if it was Bill Belichick, it'd be on to Cincinnati. Yep, exactly. How about we, how about you, explain to us what the heck this was all about. And he didn't. He wouldn't. And I just, it's okay, you know, if it is all behind us, then fine. If it isn't, I guess we'll find out soon enough. Yeah, that was actually, I'm glad you brought that up because he said, quote,

I don't think that's something for everybody to know. He says he has his ideas of what happened. and he said that they spent a lot of time this offseason focusing on it. He feels good going into the year that they've addressed this, that they have it fixed, but you are right. It's not as if he's saying it was X, it was Y. And from my perspective, I actually think that it wasn't one thing. It was a number of different things. And that's actually harder to rectify, right?

If it's just one thing, if it's just the defensive coordinator, right? If it's just the quarterback, then then, then, that's usually easier to address. If it's a handful of a bunch of different things and they come together for this awful collapse, that's much harder to address. But, you know, I hear the term culture, and I never know whether to buy it or if it's kind of a buzzword that's used in whether it's NFL facilities or corporations, whatever it may be. But Nick really emphasized that they needed to fix the culture or that they needed to get the culture right. Do you buy that? Yeah, but my experience has been that teams that win have a really good culture and teams that lose have a really bad culture.

And it kind of, you know, it's chicken and egg there. You know, you don't have it. You're not going to have a good culture if your team isn't good. And I, it's fine. What he said, I think it's remarkable that somebody who spent as much time as he has during the three years that he's been here before this talking about culture couldn't get it straightened out last year when it bad or that it went bad in the first place with all these incredible leaders the Eagles supposedly have you know or had they've lost a couple of them in Kelsey and Fletcher Cox but you know how did your culture go bad what in the world yeah I guess if I had to guess from the outside I would say players lost faith in coaching now the head coaching or just coaching in general I think it kind of

started with the defense. I think that all the problems started with the it looked like to me as an observer that it all started with the defense not being what it should have been even though they were winning games and it kind of spread like a virus from there. The offense, you know, when the defense started giving up all these repeated long drives for touchdowns every time the other team had the ball, the offense suddenly started pressing and trying to do things that weren't going to work and I just I think everybody there were probably internal problems off of that there usually are but I don't know but I think I think it started with they looked to me like by the end of the season a team that didn't believe in what it was trying to do that's an interesting

spot to be in and the fact that he's still the head coach after that is pretty remarkable And that's really, that's part of like the context for the season coming up is, is that it is a make or break year for Nick. There is a lot of pressure on Nick. And I even think Nick would acknowledge it. He said he knows he needs to win games to keep his job, right? That's fairly obvious. I've said this before and I continue saying it. If the Eagles underachieve this year, Jeffrey Lurie won't look at Hallie Roseman's roster.

I don't think he'll look at his franchise quarterback. I think he'll look at the head coach. Well, you had that thing from Lurham. worry about ingredients. Yeah, exactly. He has all the ingredients. Well, that's, that's saying it's up to the coach. You know, that's like we're not going to accept any excuses here. We don't have any, you know, last year you could have actually said going into training camp, you know, what's going on at corner? Well, maybe not so much because you didn't think Bradbury was going to fall off the cliff. But what's going on at linebacker? What's going on at safety? You know, we don't have

these things nailed down. It's kind of a weird deal there. We didn't come up with anything great and we lost some people. But this year, I think they've, linebacker maybe you can still argue, but safety, I don't think you can. They have 27 corners. It's, they've made this pretty much. They put this on Nick's lap.

Yeah. And this is where your perspective is especially valuable because you were there at the end of Andy. You were there, well, at the end of Chip, but that was a quick thing. you're there at the end of Doug and I'm not saying this is the end of of Nick by any means what I'm saying is that going into this season it's that that type of storyline that you saw for a few years at the end of Andy that you saw kind of for the last year or so maybe with Doug and I'm curious how do you think head coaches handle this how do you think Nick needs to handle this how did Andy handle this how did Doug handle this yeah that's a real good question the one that really sticks out is Andy because Lurie held a press conference at the end of the 2011 season. They had been four and eight.

They had won their last four games to finish eight and eight with the dream team of 2011. And Lurie basically gave a long soliloquy about how he just wasn't ready to part with Andy yet. And that didn't seem like a mandate to me that was really going to resonate in the locker room, and it didn't. The team was horrible the next year. They started out three and one and then just lost almost every game except one, the rest of the way, finished four and 12, and guys gave up, you know. And I think a lot depends on how the team sees Nick.

Now, with Doug, I kind of won't use Doug because I don't think with Doug, the team had problems, you know, that were Halle-Rosman problems. And I don't think players really stopped listening to Doug or thought Doug was going to get fired. With Chip, it was weird, like he said. But the Andy situation is the one I go back to. The players have to believe that Nick has clout and that Nick is going to be their coach. And if there are players who are sort of like, you know, after last season not sold on Nick, that's going to be a problem. And similarly, well, not necessarily to Andy, but in and I suppose in the same vein, you know, Andy was an incredibly accomplished coach.

He was the winning his coach in franchise history. Then he had not won a Super Bowl but had achieved just about everything else, right? And I think there's a part of Nick that looks at this and says in three years as coach, he's had three. playoff appearances two double-digit-win seasons one Super Bowl appearance like why is this a storyline why is this the big thing going into the year and I think it's it's for the reason that we mentioned that the ownership thinks the ingredients are are there that well also that two of those three playoff appearances were you know they were one and done in Tampa yeah I mean they didn't you know you it's if you get to the playoffs and embarrass yourself it's not

not really, you don't get any kudos for that in my book. You know, and I think, like we were saying, that we can't emphasize this too much. What happened after they were 10 and 1 last year is unpressed. Never happened before in the history of the NFL. So, yeah, I mean, he's got to be, I was a little bit surprised that he didn't get fired, frankly. So, yeah, he's under pressure, you know.

he's made a lot of changes in his staff and his roster and we'll just you know it'll be very very fascinating to see how this all works out we're we're going to get to those changes but the the expression that nick kept uttering when the pressure came up is you know you have to control what you can control and and i hear this time and time again from coaches and it always strikes me like of all coaches of all professions coaches love control right so it's it's like this idea when they say you can only control what you can control i i always find that's that's like the hardest thing for a coach to do because they want to have their hands on on everything so inside the locker room do you think you said nick has to have the support of the players they they have to

believe uh that nick has has has as clout how does a coach foster that boy that's a good question too um they'll have to see it they'll have to see that Kellyn Moore isn't just running the offense irrespective of Nick or are totally outside of Nick's orbit. I don't know how to say that in a succinct way, but they're either collaborators or Kellynne Moore is doing his thing and Fangio is doing his thing and Nick's just kind of, you know. I mean, you mentioned in your story, you mentioned Tomlin and Harbaugh as CEO-type coaches. Those are guys who their coordinators don't overshadow them in any way. You know, they're both kind of more defensive guys than offensive guys, which is interesting to me. I don't know that you see a lot of CEO-type coaches who are offensive.

Because usually you're hiring them for the offensive line. Yeah, yeah. You'll know it if you see it. I mean, it'll be either guys will be talking about Vic says this and Vic says that and and Kellyn says this and Kellyn says that or they'll or there'll be reference points to Nick, you know, and I'm very interested. I don't I don't really know how that's going to go. Sure. We're going to get into Kellyn Moore. We also, I also want to discuss the joy that Nick says he feels, which I thought was an interesting way of framing this offseason. Before we do, I want to tell everyone about our friends at game time. And I am pulling this up here, but I can tell you that I'm not simply reading something here. I am a

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Did you need to hydrate yourself down there? Quite a bit. I was moving my son and his wife into a house. They just bought their first house. And it feels like, well, yeah. And it feels like, thank you, the feels like temperature was 109 that day. And yeah, that was, I'm getting old for that sort of thing.

Well, the place to go then is the right aid refreshery. Yes. So we talked about Kellan Moore. And this is a fascinating storyline for this year because you mentioned it well. It's not uncommon to bring in a new offensive coordinator. What it is uncommon is for an offensive-minded coach, someone who's on record saying his favorite thing to do in coaching is put together this game plan and that he seated, Nick Siriani, seated play calling responsibilities back in 2021 because he wanted to manage the game.

But what he kept emphasizing to us was that he's not calling to plays, but he's putting the menu together. This is still his offense. And when they were hot in 2022, he made that clear. This is still his offense, right? And so now you're going into this situation in 2024 where he brings in a new offensive coordinator. He brings in Kellan Moore. And he's he's on record saying he's not in every offensive meeting room. He is not putting together the game plan. He obviously, he's responsible for it. He's the head coach. But this is his Kellan's offense. And he even said that it had the show from his perspective selflessness to give this up that it did her. It was kind of a bruise to the ego, if you will. So what's your perspective of what he had to say about the offense and Kellanmore in

particular? It was pretty much what I expected him to say. It's interesting how he continues to emphasize. He sort of minimizes differences, talks about terminology as the main difference. He was using you guys names. The play was called Martin and now it's called Rubin or something, you know. That to me seemed to be a rebuttal to what Jalen Hertz had said about the offense being 95% new. And I think that's the seed of the sort of discussion there over what new means. Sure. You know, is it just new terminology or are these different plays?

And I think he wants, he certainly wants us to. to embrace his idea that it's kind of the same stuff, but we're just calling it different things now. We'll have to, yeah, we'll know, I mean, I think when we watch the, we won't know from the preseason games, but we'll know from the regular season early on, I would guess, whether the Eagles are doing a lot of really different stuff or whether it's the same stuff packaged or, you know,

with a little motion thrown in or something like that. Yeah, his position, like you mentioned, mentioned was this idea or is this idea that on a given play, Jalen Hertz might have different responsibilities. It's the same conceptually, you know, it's the same concept of from what maybe they've done in the past with variation. So it might seem new to Jalen on a given play, but it's kind of within the family of a different play. We'll see there. I just think from a big picture perspective, right, that Nick, he viewed himself in. He, he, viewed himself in. He, see he said this as like the offensive coordinator right he didn't view himself as the play caller

but he viewed himself as the offensive coordinator because he's always said this was his offense right and as as as they go into this are you surprised by the approach that that this is kellen more system because i i keep thinking back to 2020 when they bring in rich gangaroa and doug was adamant that like no this is this is my offense yeah and we're just kind of adding some of this gangeroa flage And they never really got it together, right? Because I think when things got bad quickly, you kind of retreat to what you know. And I think Doug and Press wanted, when I say Press, Press, Press Taylor, wanted to be what they knew. Right.

If the Eagles. Yeah, you kind of forgot Rich Gangarello was even involved. Exactly. You didn't get to talk to him or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And so now they're in a position where, you know, Nick's in this make or break year. but he's not necessarily, well, he's not pushing the buttons on the offense.

So in many respects, his offense is dependent upon Kellynne Moore. Yeah, yeah, it really is. And it's, it was struck me, he talked about how he had to be an offensive meeting so much last year that he talked about a situation in which he couldn't meet with a player that he needed to meet. But how the heck does that happen? What? I just, I don't understand that. You find a way to meet with the player if you're, I think. But it sounded a little bit like what he was talking about when he gave up the play calling responsibilities for Shane Steichen.

His rationale then was he needed to be able to check in on the defense during games. He needed to be present for that part of the team. It sounds to me like he's now saying that he wasn't present. for the entire team because he was so immersed in what was going on with the offense. I guess that makes sense. We'll have to, you know, but again, this is quite a change. It's not like just giving the play calling up. I don't know Kellyn Moore.

I've never really talked to him. I've never met him. I just don't have a feel for what this is going to be like. I don't think his personality is such that he's going to be like you know, deprecating Nick publicly or saying things in his press conferences that really, you know, make it clear that he's the one that's the reason the offense is doing well or anything like that. But I just don't, I don't know what kind of, what we're going to hear from him, whether he's going to spend every week extolling Nick and saying, you know, Nick said to me on that third down,

why don't we throw it to the tight end? And I was like, gosh, darn, let's do that. You know. I do, though, think this is, this is fundamentally different than some of the OC arrangements we've seen in the past. I think back, you know, Pat Schumer with Chip Kelly, right? Where I don't want to say Pat was kind of an empty shirt there, but it was Chip's offense.

Pat was the O.C. with Chip's offense. Even Frank Reich with Doug Peterson, that was Doug's offense, right? You know, Press Taylor. Well, I should say Mike Roe, and Mike Roe was the OC then. Press Taylor. was Doug's offense. You would have a better perspective than I do on this, but I even think with with Marty Mortonweg, it was, it was, it was. And so the head coach, so, you know, you talk about those Tuesday press conferences or, you know, at different points in Eagles history, Thursday

press conferences, you know, and the OC is really just kind of, like you said, he's, he's deferring to the head coach. Kellan Moore shouldn't be deferring. to the head coach here because because Kellan Moore is in charge of the offense. And I think that's an important distinction to make. I think the other part of this too is that, and I've said this on the show, so this isn't the first time I'm saying it. But I really think it's a fascinating part of this is that I don't think Kellyn Moore is going to be here for a long time. And the reason I say this is because if they do well, I imagine Kellan Moore is going to be a head coach somewhere. He's interviewed for head coaching jobs before.

If they don't do well, they're going to bring in a whole new staff. Or are they just going to make Kellyn Moore the head coach? Well, yeah. And so that's the other part of this is that, let's say they're really successful this year. Jayhlin has a he rejuvenates himself or I don't know, rejuvenates the word, but he has a rebound year. He's one of the top quarterbacks in the league again. And a lot of it has to do with the synergy that he has with Kellyn Moore.

Knowing Jeffrey Lurie the way you do, if that happens, but they don't make it to the Super Bowl. Let's say they win a playoff game or they make it to the championship game. Do you think that Jeffrey, with the way he feels about offensive football, is going to say, I can't lose this OC. Ooh, I hadn't even thought about that. I don't, could you fire a head coach who wins a playoff game in this situation? I don't think so, no.

I don't see him doing that. Now you can try to throw money at the O.C. Yeah. You tried doing with Gannon. Right, right. I just can't see Jeffrey doing that. he's never done anything like that. And there have been situations maybe where you thought something like that was possible.

But no, it's hard to really say what happens behind the scenes. Yeah. I mean, like with Chip, I didn't really appreciate how, I knew some of it, but I didn't really appreciate how deeply estranged where he was from Chip until he fired him. It a lot depends on the Nick Lurie relationship, I guess, but I just can't imagine that would happen. And I would think if Kellyn leaves,

they've got to reinvent it with somebody else. Maybe try to, is there a Kellynne Moore disciple on the staff? Yeah, that would be Doug Nussmeyer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, quarterback's coach. But as Nick describes the selflessness that it takes for him to cede the offense to Kellyn Moore, do you view it? As selflessness, do you view it as self-preservation?

What's your perspective? I would go with self-preservation. I think we had a setup in this off-season very, very similar to when Doug Peterson left, Doug went into a meeting knowing that if he insisted on naming his coordinators and not doing what they wanted him to do, that he was out of a job. And he was fine with that. And he wasn't going to accept that provision. Sure.

And I think the meeting was turned into kind of a formality because, and I think they went into it thinking maybe Doug would take their. Because being a head coach is a fun thing to be. Yeah. And Doug had not been a hot property when they hired him, even though he won the Super Bowl. You know, as an Eagle, maybe they didn't think, you know, that Doug would want to go out there and try to do this somewhere else. but Doug was very resolute in what he wanted. I think Nick went in with a totally different mindset of, okay, what do I have to do to keep this job?

But I don't see it. Is it selfless? I may be. I don't know. I want to see more about how it works day to day before I call it selfless. Sure. And, you know, you mentioned there the time, you know, the, I don't want to say time

constraint, but like the conundrum, then Nick said he had between meeting with a player and running the offense. And it was very much the case last year that Nick was trying to fix this offense as things were going bad. And he was in every

offensive meeting. He was putting the game plan together. And he's kind of freed up this year. And that's part of kind of the context of the season is that I asked Nick Like, the way I framed it to him is you hear the lines of questioning that you're hearing today. You hear about the pressure that's on you, giving up your offense, right?

And there have been a lot of successful coaches here in Philly. You know, we don't have to name. We talked about them, Andy Reid, Doug Peterson, who by the end of it, just kind of got worn down by the job, right? And that was part of the situation with Doug. it's not always the pressure from the outside, it's the pressure from the front office. It's all that comes with the job is that is this job wearing you down. And Nick said that he's found a joy, you know, he's really found joy this offseason. And he said he's discovered kind of like, or he intimated that he discovered why he got into this in the first place.

So he's really enjoying leading players and the relationships that he has. And he has to remember that the relationships are why he's. he got into this. And he mentioned, you know, obviously he talks about his father a lot. And growing up in, you know, in New York, in Western New York, and his father was a track coach there and everyone would come back in the town and they'd visit his father and these core values that he has. And when he was coaching at Mountain Union, reading John Wooden's book to his players,

like his emphasis was these relationships that he has with the players and that he's He's kind of been freed up to have those relationships, that he's bouncing between room to room, that he can meet with the different players. And it was an interesting framing because, you know, when you're under so much pressure, I don't know if joy is the term that you would necessarily use. And he really did seem joyful.

Now, part of it, like I said, could be the time of year, right? A coach is doing much better in June than they are in February. But I did think when I spoke to Nick in February and in March, there was maybe more defiance. There was more. There was a lot. I still felt there was baggage from last season. And I did think he was liberated.

Now, you said you weren't in the room with Nick, but you know coach as well. How much of it is a coach trying to convince himself that like, you know, this is, these are the rules of engagement, right? Like, you know, I had to give up the offense. And I'm trying to find the good in this. And knowing Nick, the way you do, how much do you think is genuine? Because he has kind of talked about these core values. And he has talked about the relationship aspect of the job. Yeah, the joy thing, I don't doubt that because if you look at the way he is demeanor,

that seems very important to him. Yes. You know, it's not, he's not a Belichick, you know, robotic. don't show any emotion kind of person. I think he does need that. I think that he feeds on that sort of visceral kind of feeling. I hope that he's able to retain that in what he's doing now, and I hope that that works for him.

The CEO thing, I think, is a difficult thing to pull off. It works when you talk about being able to. to sort of pop in here and pop in there and talk to guys and have time for that sort of thing. But it doesn't work if you're perceived as kind of extraneous, if you're just a cheerleader. Yeah, which is what sometimes you wonder with Nick, because of his emotionality, if he loses kind of the thread sometimes. But I do think that's important to him. I think it was genuine what he said about joy. And I hope that continues.

If he's having fun, I think the team will be good. Yeah. Now Nick said that during the offseason, he had Don Staley in the Philly, Don Staley, South Carolina's women's basketball coach, Philly native, one of the great coaches in sports right now. She came, she addressed the leadership council. Nick and her spoke a lot about culture. He conferred with Jay Wright, someone that he's built a strong relationship with.

When he was in Indianapolis for the Combine, he met with Rick Petino. And he kind of talked about these topics as well. He had Larry Carris, who he mentions often, his coach at Mount Union, his former boss when he was an assistant in for mandatory minicamp. And they spoke a lot there to. Nick said that the concept of CEO coach did not come up in those conversations. It was the conversations were more based on culture. I thought this was, you know, a nice anecdote to share. You know, he's bouncing things off to off different coaches.

I don't know how constructive that is. I think coaches always talk. But I do think as this year goes on, what is going to be important for Nick is this idea and you know you mentioned when you were on the show a few months ago like Jeffrey Lurie wants you to to kind of preserve your personality who's talking about jail and hurts but then there's also with Nick like how do you harness the emotional side of it but but still keep kind of what makes you who you are and when you know I've I've called Nick sometimes the chief morale officer and I use that term because

if he's not calling the plays and he's not overseeing the defense, a lot of what he has to do is the way players feel getting the team ready on a week-to-week basis. And Nick's temperament is going to be dictated a lot by whether they're winning, whether they're losing, right? And so I know 2012 isn't the best comparison because Andy Reid was dealing with a lot that year. you know his son passed away going to training camp but that spring that summer what what do you remember about andy's kind of mood and his demeanor going into that that make-a-break year well before the thing happened with garrett his son at lehigh uh i thought he was just fine uh they were thinking that they had solved some of the problems they had uh in 2011 there was a sort of an

expectation that some of these big free agent signings that hadn't really fit in in 2011, that they had figured out ways that this was all going to work in 2012, which was totally wrong. But, you know, there was, they had drafted Fletcher Cox. Jim Washburn was very excited about that. I didn't, there weren't a lot of, it wasn't a bad training. I mean, the Garrett Reed thing overshadowed everything, but, Going into that, there wasn't like a sense of doom or anything. I think the quarterback thing was a little unsettled.

They had Vic and... Foles was the... He was competing with CAFTA and Trent Edwards there as well. Right, right. You didn't know if Vic could still do it. He had the play... They had Shady, they had Deshawn. I think they had work.

out one of the problems in 2011 was that Deshaun basically quit on the team because he wanted he wanted a new contract and that was one of the things that led to Joe Banner getting kind of exiled was that he couldn't resolve that situation and Andy felt like it really hamstrung the team so they there was a lot of there was talent and there was optimism and they got off to a great start and then things just turned for I think culture is in that sense, and that team was a problem. A lot of veterans from different locker rooms who weren't eagles, you know, most of their careers. There were some people who were just following their own agendas, Jason Babin. Yeah. It wasn't a cohesive group, and you had the whole thing about NAMDi eating lunch in his car. They were expecting him to mentor these young guys, and he's trying to get away from. as much as he can.

I'm rambling on and on here, but it was a very strange year. There weren't a lot of indicators that it was going to go that bad. If you accepted the premise that assembling all these free agents somehow was going to work, eventually, then you thought they were okay. But we now know, I think that the biggest lesson from all that was you don't just go out and sign half a dozen high-profile free agents from different systems and different locker rooms all over the league. And it's not baseball.

It's a team game. And you need people that believe in what you believe and fit into your systems and, you know, things of that nature. Now, we are going to discuss the Bill Belichick part of this. But just as a quick follow up to that, because you mentioned the players coming from other teams. When Nick was talking about what could be a hangover from the way last year ended, he had an interesting quote, and I'm going to read this verbatim.

He said, this is a new team, and all we're concerned about is the 2024 Eagles. We went through our stuff, and we learned things that we learned from last year, and then you implement those here. But then this is the part in particular. Saquan Barkley doesn't care. In fact, he was really happy that we lost the last game last year against the Giants. Same thing with Orrin Burke, same thing with Zach Bond, same thing with Devin White. This is the 2024 Eagles in our expectation.

is enjoy the journey to get better, and there's nothing we can do about the past except learn from it. So he's essentially indicating there that the scars from last year, he obviously feels that Geoen Hertz feels, and A.J. Brown feels that DeVante Smith feels. You go on down the board, but that this is a different team and that, you know, player, that some of these big-name guys that they added,

Sequin in particular, I would even extend this to Kellan Moore and the Vic Fangio, that they're not affected by the scars from last year. Do you think this is the right approach for Nick to take? It's a predictable approach. As we said at the top of the show, he doesn't want to discuss what really went wrong. He wants to turn the page. So this is part of his turn the page message.

Do I really buy it partially? I mean, you're right about the coordinators not being part of this last year. You're right about Sequin Barclay being a big part of the team who's not part of it. But when you start naming guys that might or might not be key players this year, you're kind of tiptoeing around. The key players on this team were a part of what happened last year. Sure. You know, Jalen Hertz and Slay and Brandon Graham and Lane Johnson and George.

Gordon myelotta, all those, you know, all the key eagles pretty much, except for Sequin Barkley, were, we're part of this last year. So I think you can oversell that. I don't buy that, well, it's, you know, we don't have to worry about what happened last year because it's all new. And it's not all new. Yeah, yeah, I do think those scars are there. And I think that you can't, you can't kind of have it both ways in that you you can't emphasize how constructive last season was and or how that's that's going to be something that they can look back and they can learn from but then at that at the same time completely kind of turn the page to a new year I see in the chat tracer bullets as I think we're a lot more concerned about last year than they are it's it's going to be interesting to see

because yeah maybe because last year the Eagles very much said the Super Bowl hangover wasn't a thing and then at the end of the year they kind of talked about all the pressure of it always is i mean you look at the history exactly and it it is a thing for everybody you know and of course when you get to the super bowl and then you're in the offseason afterward you're going to claim that it's not thing because you don't want to say well we're not going to be very good or we're going to have a disastrous second half or we're going to you know flame out early in the playoffs i mean that's not how you it's not how you approach anything but it is a thing it very much is thing i've covered a lot of, you know, several teams, three Eagles teams now, I guess, that have been to

Super Bowls, and it's never been good the next year. It's never been good. The, the big context or the subtext, I should say, of this year is Bill Belchak looming. We're going to get to that in a minute before we do. I want to tell you about Sleep Healthy PA. At Sleep Healthy PA, they are committed to helping Philadelphia residents, stop the snore and find solutions for sleep apnea that will allow you to rest well and improve your health. What causes sleep apnea? There's a choke point in the throat that causes snoring. Think of it like a kink in a garden hose. Dr. Andrew Cohen, board certified in dental sleep medicine and his staff will work one-on-one with you to provide first-class care that meets your needs. Many physicians aren't equipped to provide

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True Mark Financial is federally insured. by the NCUA and is an equal opportunity lender for more information visit trumark.com slash p.h.ly. So I mentioned Bill Belichick. I mentioned him a few times on this show. And I don't think I am overstating this. I think this is something that is hanging over the team this year. And I say it because the Bill Belichick rumors, and of course for background here, ESPN had

a report earlier this year that Jeffrey Lurie spoke with the, with confidence about Bill Belichick. He decided not to pursue him. Hallie Roseman spoke to Bill Belichick after Bill Belichick was fired. The conversation was not about the Eagles job, but it suggested to have a relationship. And that if Bill Belichick wants to get in the coaching, the Eagles are very much on Bill Belichick's radar.

And so I bring this up for a few reasons. First off, a six-time Super Bowl-winning coach, who's one of the great coaches in football history, is not often available, right? Bill Belichick hasn't been available since, what, 2000, number one. And then number two, this is not something that, you know, like we're talking about, our message boards are talking about, our talk radio is talking about just to fill time on a July afternoon. This is something that two of the most credible investigative reporters in that cover

professional football brought up. So there's, there is a there. And so I'm, I was, I was happy to see this, this question came up to Siriani. I was going to ask it. But it was, but it was, was asked by someone else. And he, when this was presented to Nick about how he learned about the Bill Belichick rumors, first he kind of acted like he wasn't that aware of him. Bill who? Yeah. But he said, and I'll read this verbatim, all I really took is that I had Mr. Lurie's

trust, Howey's trust, and they said, hey, let's go back and let's do it again. That's all I've thought about control, what you can control. That's what I've tried to do. I've tried to lead this team. Like, I've always tried to lead this team. and then he goes on and talks about the culture and whatnot. How real do you think the Bill Belichick cloud is? And do you think that's hanging over the Eagles and specifically Nick Siriani this year?

Boy, I just can't imagine Bill's age and the fact that he's defense-oriented and what happened those last few years in New England. I know Jeffrey is from Boston and that the Patriots were this incredible evil empire for so many years and everyone respected what they did and try to imitate what they did. But that era is over. That's why Belichick doesn't have a job. Any team in the league could have hired him this offseason.

Nobody did. I have a hard time thinking that's going to be the move if things go bad this year. Maybe it will. Maybe I'm wrong. I just can't envision it. I don't think it's a lurry. Obviously, you look into this. Sure.

I mean, if the winningest coach in the history of the NFL comes available and your coach has struggled in this past season, you think of, you convene a few meetings and you think about it, but they didn't do it. it. A year out of the job, yeah, I guess Belichick's going to be on TV. We'll see how this goes. We'll see what kind of job he gets after this season. I would think it would be a really downtrodden franchise that's going to give him personnel control. Sure. And I don't know that that's going to work. How many Super Bowl winning coaches have gone somewhere else and done it? Don Shula? Yeah, it's, it certainly doesn't have to. Exactly.

You know, I, things like this just don't, they sound good, but is he going to bring Tom Brady out of retirement if he comes to the Eagles? And so do you think this is more of a media creation this year? Like, for instance. Oh, I don't know that it's a media creation, but I just don't think when push comes to shove, if they're making a coaching decision in January or February, that'll be on the board. But there'll be something else bright and shiny. that's Ben Johnson. That's not 73 years old. You know, that's my feeling.

What's the context do you think for Nick Siriani this year? Well, I should say, do you think, you know, we called us a make-or-break year? Yeah. But if you think out of the year, what do you think he needs to do to be the coach for year-five? You know, it all depends on what happens. There's always all kinds of stuff that you just can't sit here and, July and predict. Is Jalen Hertz going to get injured in this half the season?

Is the offensive line going to, you know, lose four guys and be chaos? Right now with the people that he has, with the ingredients, as Lurie called. Sure. I think he's got to win a playoff game, certainly. If that doesn't happen, I think he's going to have a hard time holding on to that job. Does he need to do more than that? Again, let's say they win a playoff game against a team that isn't great, and then the next round they get blown out.

So it's context-dependent. Could he still lose his job? Yeah. If they were a 10-and-7 team, yeah, he probably could, because they expect this to be a really good team. They expect, you know, like a 12-win. Sure. The schedule's easier this year, even though they're not at home very much early in the year.

But there's so many variables that if they're a 10 and 17 team without Jalen Hertz most of the year, then obviously he keeps his job. But if everything is basically in place, I think they have to be really good. I think they have to win 11, 12 games and win a couple playoff games for him to really be secure. What do you think happens if they start slowly this season? DeLurie's not the kind of guy that's going to say, oh, we're two and four. Oh, I've got a, you know, the chip thing is the only time he's ever made an end season. I mean, Ray Roads, all that stuff, you know, he stuck it out.

He's not a, let's, that's a point of interim coach, you know, kind of, unless they were really convinced that Callan Moore was going to be their next head coach or something, which if things are going that badly, I don't. don't see how you could possibly be convinced of that. Yep. I don't see the start. I mean, and I say that and now, you know, if they start 0 and 8, well, that might be different. But, you know, it's generally no.

Unlikely they're going to start a lot. Generally no. Yeah. And I think that's kind of, I think what sometimes gets lost in all the Syriani discussion because we talk about him coaching for his job. We talk about it being a make-a-break year is that like Siriani is a really successful coach. Yeah. is that there's like the I mean part of the reason a big part of the reason why Jeffrey

Lurie kept Nixiriani is that Jeffrey Lurie thinks Nixiriani can coach. It's like there's a reason why Jeffrey Lurie hired him when he did. I think there's sometimes this thought that that Nick Sieriani is a it's kind of like a puppet for the front office. I don't think that's the case so much as I think Jeffrey Lurie feels that you need to hire a coach for the moment in time and that when he was looking that when he was hiring nick he was looking for a certain type of he was attracted to nick's personality he was attracted to you know i was on anthony's show today and they asked me like like what's nick good at and i i would say that if he talked to people

in the building if you talk to people who who know him they say he has an elite ability to kind of connect with people that he has a temperament and a personality uh that people gravitate toward The example that's often given to me is what happened in 2021 when the Eagles started two and five. And then they rebound. And there is, you know, there is, I keep going back to conversations I've had with people who are in the room when they hired Nick Siriani. That Nick comes in. He's not dressed up. He was down in Fort Lauderdale for a family vacation.

The Eagles called him in. Like Nick wasn't expecting did to interview for a job. and he was able to to to kind of galvanize the room he he has this this easy personality in that regard and I think sometimes when fans see the press conferences they think one thing because press conferences almost by nature are performative but when you're in the setting that we were in with Nick when he gave this roundtable interview and you've been in that setting yeah with him in the in the past he does have a unique ability to connect with people. And so I think that's part of what Jeffrey sees.

Yeah, he's a very vibrant kind of, you know, a guy. He doesn't, there's nothing reticent or mysterious about him. You know, he's, he's a Philly kind of personality in a lot of ways. You know, he's very loud and in your face, I think. But in a likable way, right? Like I think, I think, you know, he might come off almost bombastic or pompous sometimes, like with the antics. But I think the antics need to be toned down. I think that's a distraction. When you talk about CEO coaches, you certainly don't see Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh doing things like that. I think he needs to really heed Big Dom and, you know, calm down a little bit.

I know Jalen Hertz would appreciate that. Sure, sure. So we have about five minutes here. Any last minute thoughts from the? Yeah, the one thing we haven't touched on that I noticed in looking through the transcript was training camp. Yes, okay. Yep. There was a lot of talk when the Eagles collapsed at the end of last season about Nick's approach to practice, his approach to training camp.

Now, last year, everybody knows coming off a Super Bowl, you've had a super long season, especially now that the season is seven. teams, nobody has a tough training camp or a hard spring, you know, in that situation. That's, that's idiotic. He did things the way he had to in that situation. But this is a very different situation. Their season ended early. And I think people want to see hard work on the field. Interesting. And I think he talked about that. He talked about not over-correcting. Yes. And he gave a very strong defense of you know, we didn't have problems because of camp last year. We started out 5 and O. Well, they started out 5 and O,

but as anybody remember the opener against a really bad Patriot scene? Did they really come out, you know, with all their guns firing and everything great? No, I, it was a weird 5 and O. I think he can do camp a little. I think there can be more emphasis on the on-field stuff. I think he can run practices with more. emphasis on the on-field stuff without inviting a deluge of injuries. I'm not talking about pads.

You know, there are regulations about that. I'm not talking about two a days with pads or any of that crap. Because that's gone from the whole league. But I do think he can be a little more, a little less classroom-oriented and a little more, let's get out on the field and yell at each other. And, you know, I don't think that would hurt anything. That's a good point. And they're really, there are two separate conversations here. They're the practices and they're the preseason games. And with the practices, their position has been, you know, they're very, they, they listen to their sports science department and what the training staff says. And so they reduce the workload that they have. They believe you should have these like shorter high intensity practices than these prolonged practices. And there are a certain amount of days you, you know, there's like a green day, a yellow. yellow day and a red day.

I mean, I'm not the smartest person in the world, but red means stop. Yellow, right. Slow, green means go. So I think that they can have, they can go a little faster on green, let's say. Or they can go a little longer on the green days. I don't expect them to change much with the preseason. And I know Nick said after that Patriots game last year that maybe they should, they should think about playing their guys in the in the preseason.

I think Nick is going to be hyper focused this year about. not showing anything on offense or not defense. He really believes in this concept of competitive advantage. I think that can be overstated. Yes, I get really, I get, sometimes they are just so over the moon on that. It's just simple things, you know, that aren't going to change anything in the world. That they're like, oh, we can't tell you that. What time does the game start?

Oh, exactly. But yeah, you're right. But I would not, I'm not big on preseason games. getting guys hurt in preseason games. No, that's, no. They have the joint practices with the Patriots. Yeah, they're going to have one this year. Typically, Nick likes to have practices against two teams.

They're only doing one this year. My educated guess here is that has to do with the end of the summer, kind of preparing for it before Brazil and what their schedule is going to be then. That's a very good point. But I like the joint practice thing. I think if the league ever goes to 18 games, I think you'll see no preseason games and you'll see these joint practices somehow become maybe some kind of event that Shans can go to or something.

You know. It'd be great a fans can actually watch practice, right? Right. And, you know, but I think that's where the preseason is headed. I don't care if he plays guys in preseason games. We were going to talk quite a bit about training camp and the preseason in the coming days, including tomorrow when Bo Wolf is back. We're excited to meet with Bo again.

but it was it was fun chopping this up with with less you can read less as content on all p hly dot com we'll continue to have less in studio whenever it fits in his schedule less thanks for joining us today uh for p hly uh that's that's that's that's less thank you to julia i'm zach bow would say as always we love you i will say we'll do better tomorrow thank you for watching