Nick Sirianni appears every Monday morning with Angelo Cataldi on 94 WIP. That’s actually one of the biggest travesties in Philadelphia, the fact that the Birds’ head coach has to answer to Cataldi after every loss.

I will say, however, that Angelo is tolerable when he turns off the morning zoo shtick and just does a straightforward interview. Today he asked about the final play of Sunday’s loss, the pass that hit Jalen Reagor right in the hands at the one yard line, and this is what Sirianni had to say about that sequence:

“In that last series right there, they were doing a couple of different things. The last play of the game is a scramble, a scramble play can go to anybody, as we all know that. And so the play with the ‘go’ ball right there, when we get an opportunity in a two minute drill and you get a press/man opportunity on a ‘go’ ball you take it, because that’s a way to create an explosive play right there. We’ve taught our quarterback that. So the play call was not for Jalen, but the defensive look that the team gave us, gave us an opportunity to end the game on that play. We teach our quarterback that any time you get press/man on a (go route), we take an opportunity on that in a two-minute drill. Good things can happen from it. In that case it didn’t, but that’s what we teach our guys.” 

Follow up question – should Reagor have caught either one of those balls?

“Obviously he’s going to want those plays back. We want those plays back for him. You saw the tape. We saw the tape. He expects to make those plays and we expect him to make those plays, but it never comes down to one play. We’ve all had our hand in that one. The play calling, the turnovers, the drops at the end. When it happens at the end I know what it can seem like that, that’s it’s all on that guy, but it’s on all of us. And it starts with me as the head coach.”

We all know the answer to the question. Of course Reagor should have caught one of those balls. He’s a first round draft pick. You gotta make a play at some point. He did it well at TCU, and when you go through his college film, he did a nice job of locating and attacking the football in the air. That was one of the things that popped on tape, his ability to make plays despite being more a hybrid “get the ball in his hands” kind of person vs. a traditional wide or slot receiver.

Here’s the final couple of plays again. They had press man on the outside on the first sequence, then the second one got kind of funked up because Hurts was finding time in the pocket, and it ended up being more of a heave:

Shrug. Need a first round draft pick to make a play.