PALM BEACH, Fla. — Among the 16 NFC coaches at the NFL’s annual meetings on Tuesday morning, Nick Sirianni drew the biggest crowd.
Sirianni almost needed a Tush Push just to get to his seat.
When he finally did, the Eagles’ Super Bowl-winning head coach answered questions for over a half hour about a myriad of topics. Plenty were fired his way about the impeding fate of the Tush Push as the proposal from the Packers to ban the play headed toward a vote. (Update: The debate was tabled)
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SIGN UP HERE Did Sirianni mean it as a slight jab when he mentioned that Packers legend Bart Starr once ran the play? Maybe.
“You guys know my opinion on it,” Sirianni said. “I’m not going to continue to dive into it. My opinion is very well documented and I won’t continue to dive into that. I think maybe that’s why there’s so many cameras here today to talk about that. I still stand where I stood when we talked at the Combine. We’ll see how it goes down. Have I been lobbying? I’ve talked to a couple people, yeah. We’ll see how it goes today.”
While there were plenty of Tush Push questions lobbed to Sirianni on Tuesday morning at The Breakers, there were plenty of other topics discussed too.
Here are five non-Tush Push takeaways from Sirianni’s half-hour long session with reporters:
NFL
1. Where’s that new contract?
At the NFL owners meetings a year ago, one of the big topics was why the Eagles decided to retain Sirianni after the collapse of 2023 that ended in a Wild Card-round loss.
This year? One of the big topics is about a potential contract extension for the head coach coming off a Super Bowl win. Sirianni is set to enter the final year of the five-year deal he signed when he became the head coach in 2021. Good teams don’t let their head coaches enter lame duck seasons and it would be very out of character for the Eagles to let that happen.
Sirianni isn’t stressing about it.
“These things will take care of themselves,” he said. “I’m not too concerned about it. I don’t really get into contracts with anybody. I’m not going to get into this one. It’ll take care of itself.”
2. What’s going on with Dallas Goedert?
As we enter April, the Eagles’ situation with starting tight end Dallas Goedert is very much unresolved. On Monday, general manager Howie Roseman said there was “no update” on the situation but certainly didn’t push back on any reports that Goedert is available for a trade and that his future in Philly is up in the air.
On Tuesday, Sirianni was asked about Goedert and his answer was just as notable.
“Right now he’s on our football team and obviously Dallas Goedert has meant a lot to us,” Sirianni said. “We’ll see how that plays out. He’s a heck of a football player, heck of a leader. Want to be able to bring back as many guys as you can. But that is not the reality of the NFL. We’ll see what happens and how that happens but of course you want everyone back.”
The issue is that Goedert is 30 now as he enters the final year of his contract that no longer includes guaranteed money. He’s owed around $15 million and the Eagles all offseason have prioritized getting younger; paying that much to an aging tight end doesn’t really jibe with the rest of the offseason.
Would Sirianni like to have Goedert back? Of course. But this could end up being another tough decision in an offseason full of them.
“We won a Super Bowl last year and everybody was responsible for that,” Sirianni said. “Even going back to Chauncey (Gardner-Johnson), anytime somebody moves on, whether it’s Sweaty (Josh Sweat), whether it’s Milton (Williams) or whoever it is, obviously you did special things together and you’ll miss them along the way. But you want to try to hold on to as many guys as you can if it’s the right (move) because we did something special but there’s more to it than that.”
3. Missing CJGJ
To start the week of owners meetings, Roseman explained his decision to trade C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Houston Texans.
Sirianni was close to Gardner-Johnson and saw some of himself in the mercurial, trash-talking safety. He’s going to miss CJGJ.
“Obviously, Chauncey’s contributions to this football team were awesome,” Sirianni said. “He brings a lot of energy and makes a lot of plays. I love him. I love him. Wish him the best. I had a good experience with him for two years, even though there was time off in between there. I think a lot is said on his energy and of course he has great energy every day. He loves football. He loves to play the game on Sunday. He brings great energy. With that, we have a lot of defensive guys that play with an edge, that play with great energy.”
Sirianni then talked about some of the players who will help the Eagles replace that type of energy they will no longer get from Gardner-Johnson. He mentioned, in order: Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell and Nakobe Dean.
“We have a lot of guys on that defensive side that will be able to continue to bring what Chauncey brought,” Sirianni said. “But I wish Chauncey the best. I love him and we’ll obviously miss him. But it’ll create som opportunity for some other guys.”
4. The new QBs coach
When Sirianni spoke to reporters at the Combine in Indianapolis, the Eagles still had one big hire left to make. They eventually landed on former Bowling Green head coach Scot Loeffler to be their new quarterbacks coach.
Loeffler is the fourth quarterbacks coach in five years under Sirianni, following Doug Nussmeier, Alex Tanney and Brian Johnson.
“You do a lot of work. You interview a lot of different guys. You cast a wide net in the attempt to find the right person,” Sirianni said. “And there was a lot of good candidates that we interviewed. Scot stood out. Probably called a ton of guys to not only the interview process but the vetting process at the end. Called the guys to see what he’s like. It just kept coming back that Scot is obsessed with football, loves football. Is just a grinder and just very knowledgeable on quarterback play.
“And we’re able to get some new, fresh ideas from him on things that he’s done as the head coach at Bowling Green and prior time before that. Really excited about the addition of Scot.”
The Eagles this offseason promoted Kevin Patullo from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator. So it’s important the Eagles are able to infuse their offense with some fresh ideas. Some of those ideas will come from new passing game coordinator Parks Frazier. But some will come from Loeffler too.
“You’ll see. Not going to get specific into that,” Sirianni said. “Fresh ideas. Obviously, we hired him to be the quarterbacks coach and to continue to develop, help Jalen Hurts continue to rise. And he’s an expert at quarterback play. He’s just obsessed with football. But the new ideas, what I was speaking about with new ideas are some of the things that they ran offensively that just give us fresh thoughts into our offense.”
5. Coming off a Super Bowl
The Eagles’ offseason program coming up will be similar to the one they had before their Super Bowl season, Sirianni said. It worked pretty well last year as the Eagles ramped it up some.
Sirianni said in his experience, reaching the mountaintop doesn’t create a feeling of satisfaction. Instead, he thinks it creates more hunger to get back there. Sirianni said he learned that from his days playing in college at Mount Union.
And he wanted to make one thing clear on Tuesday: The Eagles are moving on to 2025.
“We’re to a point now where the celebration is over,” Sirianni said. “The celebration of the Super Bowl is over. And I know [Brandon Graham] and Saquon (Barkley) threw out the first pitch and we’ll have our ring ceremony and all that. But our preparation is here. Celebration is over, preparation is here.
“There’s nothing like getting back in there and starting to work again. With our team and the leaders we have on this football team, if you’re not busting your butt and giving everything you’ve got, you’re going to get exposed. That’s why we value these guys so much. Try not to work hard in front of Saquon Barkley or Jalen Hurts and they’ll be on you.”