Sirianni has Birds playing games in OTAs
PHILADELPHIA » Nick Sirianni was a little short on substance Friday after the Eagles’ last organized team activity before training camp.
If the decision is his to make, does the rookie head coach really have no idea how many padded practices the Eagles will have or how much tackling to the ground they’ll do when they check into camp in late July?
Withholding the names of specific younger players who stood out in the month of OTAs isn’t exactly transparent, either. But Sirianni really enjoys a good diversionary story, which is why he put his heart and soul into describing the games he encourages players to participate in to sharpen themselves for the season.
In the Friday finale at Lincoln Financial Field, Sirianni placed himself squarely into the middle of a showdown between what probably will be his top two receivers, first-round draft pick DeVonta Smith and veteran Travis Fulgham. The duo went toe-totoe on side-by-side “green ball machines,” which are poles with footballs attached to them by bungy cords.
Participants throw the ball hard in any direction and above all, catch it after it snaps back from all kinds of weird directions. Teammates kept score rather loudly.
“If you practice competing, you’re going to be better at competing,” Sirianni explained. “This is such a cutthroat business. There’s constantly a guy coming in for your job. It’s all about the wins and losses. The games are tight, the parity is tight. All these games come down to one score. Just like we practice on offense, inside zone or defense over Cover-3, we’ve got to practice competing as well.”
Sirianni said the defensive backs raced each other in a backpedal drill Friday.
“Precision, great fundamentals and intensity and great speed, like the game is going to be,” Sirianni said.
Running backs Boston Scott and rookie Kenny Gainwell, vying to be the third-down back, went head-to-head catching footballs from the Juggs machine.
Defensive linemen Josh Sweat and Brandon Graham raced against each other in another drill.
Sirianni said the Eagles have a ping-pong table in a meeting room and that before they went to practice Friday, Dallas Goedert defeated Eric Wilson.
“Eric Wilson might not want me saying this but Dallas whooped up on Eric,” Sirianni said. “And the person that’s incredible, that doesn’t lose at anything is (kicker) Jake Elliott. He’s phenomenal at everything. He can play pingpong, throw the ball, kick.
“But that’s the philosophy. That’s the why. And it is the two major things that we talked about – getting better at what you do and your craft, and then practicing competing.”
Coaches apparently need competition, too. Sirianni said he was late for the after-practice Zoom meeting because he engaged wide receiver Greg Ward in a threepoint shooting contest … and lost. Still waiting to hear how that’s going to benefit the game coach.
• • • Traditionally, Eagles head coaches thank the players for their hard work following offseason
camp and leave them with words to live by until training camp begins.
The last thing a football franchise needs is to share a headline with a gentlemen’s club. That happened a few years back with Nelson Agholor, now with the New England Patriots.
“My message was to continue to practice good habits, stay out of trouble and then be ready to come into camp in the best physical shape of your life,” Sirianni said Friday. “When you’re in the best physical shape of your life, now your football IQ and your fundamentals can really show.”
Trusted Eagles veterans, however, have a little more leeway when it comes to taking their break before training camp begins July 27 for all NFL teams.
“Now, a lot of guys have been playing football for a long time and they nave their routine,” Sirianni said. “Maybe they need to get away for a week. How that goes is up to each individual player.”
• • •
The Eagles signed three more 2021 draft picks in Marlon Tuipulotu, Tarron Jackson and Patrick Johnson. Still unsigned are Landon Dickerson, the secondround interior offensive lineman and linebacker Jacoby Stevens, their seventh-round pick.
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From his first training camp Doug Pederson made it perfectly clear that he’d roll with tackling to the ground at training camp because that’s the way the game is played.
Pederson, of course, modified the number of sessions when defenders teed off on offensive players like Zach Ertz.
Chip Kelly’s camps had zero tackling to the ground.
Though Sirianni dismissed how he’ll navigate padded practices and tackling, calling it an “ongoing conversation,” he sounds like he’s going the Kelly route.
“When we’re able to have the pads on, we’re going to have the pads on because that’s how football is played,” Sirianni said. “That’s when you can tell a lot. We’re just in shorts out there right now. But you can tell a lot about how a football player is when you put those pads on because, again, that’s how the game is played. We’ll definitely utilize that. I’m sure there will be a period here and there where we’re going live to the ground. That’s still to be determined. That hasn’t been my experience in the past.
“I do believe, for different reasons, that we don’t go live to the ground. Here and there we will but not overly done.”
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What real benefits the Eagles got from three weeks of voluntary yet heavily attended OTAs, which they traded a mandatory minicamp for, remain to be seen.
There were no 7-on-7 or 11-on11 drills, which mandatory minicamps allowed.
There were a lot of individual drills, stretching and well, pingpong. Truth be told, it was more than coaching staffs had last year during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Every correction we made or every praise we made, like, even from walk-through or from individual drill, it was so exciting to make that,” Sirianni said. “Like, we’re just that much further ahead starting camp. That’s three weeks of correction and praise when it’s done the right way. That’s what was so exciting to me. So, a lot of great work was done and we’ve got a lot more to learn. But we know a lot about what our guys can do right now.”
The latter is the key for the young staff Sirianni is leading as it tries to rebuild the culture after a 4-11-1 season.
“It was good just to get around those guys and build those connections,” Sirianni said. “It was not wasted time. We had great competition, connections.”