Nick Sirianni and His Staff Might be Better Equipped to Work in Virtual World

So what if the Eagles coach takes an unconventional approach, such as playing games, as long as it works, but it remains to be seen if it will

PHILADELPHIA – My mind began to wander during Wednesday’s pre-draft availability with the Eagles' brain trust while listening to Eagles coach Nick Sirianni talk about playing Jeopardy and rock-paper-scissors with his players on Zoom.

What if the Eagles’ 4-11-1 season in 2020 was in part due to Doug Pederson and his staff’s failure to adapt to a virtual world?

What if there was too much wasted time on Zoom trying to figure out how to get things done, to communicate via technology, to keep players' attention?

What if the guys didn’t completely buy in?

It was a strange, new world, after all.

So many “what-ifs” kept darting in and out of the various corners of my brain when, suddenly, Sirianni snapped me out of it, made me feel like a daydreaming high school kid in math class fearful of being called on for an answer and not knowing it because I wasn’t paying attention.

“I'm not sure every one of you - we're in Zoom right now; I'm sure not every one of you is listening intently because there are other things going around in your basements or in your house or in your car or wherever you are,” Sirianni said, delivering me out of my own head.

He was right.

There is a lot of preoccupation that goes on working remotely. It happens face-to-face, too, but having spent more than a year chained to a home office, suffice it to say it happens a lot more without the socialization aspect.

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Whatever your view of Sirianni in the handful of Zoom calls we’ve seen of him, there can be no disputing that he is brimming with passion and enthusiasm. He even gave an answer to a question that wasn’t even directed his way.

Whether that sort of passion and enthusiasm can survive an up-and-down regular season that will now run 17 games long remains to be seen, as does whether or not his coaching style will play in a locker room, where, in some cases, a number of players won’t be that much younger than him.

As far as the virtual learning that will again take place in another pandemic-addled spring, perhaps Sirianni, at age 39 and stuffed to the gills with passion and enthusiasm, and his youthful assistant coaching staff, will be better equipped to deal with than Pederson and his group were.

The head coach is going to find ways to keep his players engaged on Zoom, try to keep their attention.

He will do it by calling on them randomly to recite something that was just taught, like a piece of a game plan or a technique.

He will keep them engaged by playing little games like rock-paper-scissors and Jeopardy, though it may be easy to poke fun at the style of engagement.

He will rely on his assistants to be creative in their methods of teaching.

It may very well work, this outside the box type of thinking.

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“We have a creative group of guys,” said Sirianni. “We had a staff meeting and we said, ‘Hey, here's what we did in Indy and how we maximized how we were going to learn in the Zoom meetings. What else did you do?

"'[Eagles defensive backs coach] Dennard [Wilson], what did you do in New York? [Eagles defensive coordinator] Jonathan [Gannon], what did you do on the defensive side of the ball? I wasn't over there.’ You do things just like we do with the draft. You do it together to figure out how you're going to get the most out of the players.”

Sirianni doesn’t like to talk much about his days in Indianapolis, but he harkened back to his time with Frank Reich and how the Colts were able to win 11 games. Talent helped, but so did the ability to be creative in a virtual world.

“I know we did a great job of it,” said Sirianni. “We figured out what - we were given a situation and we had to adapt. Huh, that sounds a lot like football. Hey, we thought they were going to play Cover-3. Oh, they're playing Cover-2. Adapt or get passed up.

“Oh, we thought they were bringing this slot nickel pressure. Well, they brought the strong safety pressure the other way, right. Adapt or get whooped. A tribute to Frank. He kind of got us going on that. Hey, figure out how we're going to maximize the learning.”

If Sirianni can do that and it works, he can play charades or jacks if he wants.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s EagleMaven and host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.

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