Heard a caller on the WIP Morning Show say he doesn’t like taco soup because he’s “more of a meat and potatoes guy.” Go figure. Taco soup is probably too exotic for a large portion of the Eagles’ fan base.

He was referencing this Tuesday quote from Nick Sirianni, who went on a lengthy and rambling answer when asked about self-scouting during the playoff bye week, invoking his cooking habits when talking about studying Birds film:

Q. When you go back to the bye week, which has been a while now, you obviously have that process. Does it change any way at all when you’re heading into the playoffs? Is there a different way you try to tackle it? (John McMullen)

NICK SIRIANNI: We feel really good about that process. What you’re trying to do is go through and you’re watching the tape of these things, right? For instance, we just got done watching the sack tape and I won’t get into that.

There’s the data of it, you have one coach that summarizes that data, you see common denominators of what that data may say, then you put the tape on and let the tape tell the story.

You watch it, then at the end of that, whatever spurs thought, you watch. Whatever spurs a ‘Hm, this is a common denominator here, let’s watch them all’, it spurs thought. And then you go and you summarize those things. ‘Hey Shane, what did you see there? Hey [Run Game Coordinator/Offensive Line coach Jeff] Stout [Stoutland], what did you see there?’ And I’ll tell them what I saw there. It’s an open room to say that.

That’s a really important part of the process. We feel like we always tweak our process to get better at it and we really feel good about how that goes.

It is a grind, but that’s what we do. We grind to make sure we can find the answers to put our guys in better spots and to coach them more efficiently.

It’s very similar. Then you look at the part of the game where you feel like you’re a top 10. You have to look at some statistical things and some analytic things where you are a top 10 team and where you are a bottom 10 team. Then you really dive into that bottom 10 team, what you are there and you figure out what’s going on.

Naturally as you go through that process, things pop up, right? We talk about sacks. You might have gone in and examined why this was a common denominator, and then something pops up. So, what you’re doing through that, at the end of the sack reel, you say, ‘Hey, anything pop up right there?’ And naturally, we’ve had three things pop up, and that will be tomorrow. Let’s take care of all the pop-up things within the next couple of days.

We like that process. We feel like we’re very systematic with that process. It’s really the only way I know how to do it, and then just try to improve it each time.

So, it’s very, very, very similar because when you go back, I don’t know, I make taco soup sometimes for my family. I make the taco soup how I made it the last time because, well my kids don’t love it, but my wife likes it. I make the taco soup the way I did last time. Why do my kids not like it? Well because I didn’t give them enough Fritos on the side. So maybe then I’ll add a couple of Fritos.

[Jokingly] I’ll probably get made fun of for that, but that’s okay.

Okay, you get the point. I cut off the second half of the quote.

The question is whether or not taco soup will fly in Philly, because there’s trend potential here. This could be the next “watering and fertilizing” quote. It could be the next underdog mask or Dancing on my Own (remix). Will Eagles fans embrace taco soup? Should shoulder pad guy come out of retirement and bring a bowl of soup and a ladle to Lincoln Financial Field? He could taunt Zeke Elliott like this:

 

The thing about taco soup is that it’s not even really soup. It’s more in the chili or goulash family. It has the consistency of a stew. Not colloidal or gelatinous, but thicker than Progresso or whatever you buy at the grocery store. I’m not entirely sure how they determine the soup/chili threshold, but I know a soup when I see one, and taco soup is not soup.

It reminds me of Senator Lloyd Bentsen talking about this topic in 1988:

“Senator, I eat taco soup. I knew taco soup. Taco soup was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no taco soup.”