Ad Disclosure
Nick Sirianni Says Jalen Hurts has “Total Freedom” at the Line of Scrimmage
Published:
Nick Sirianni was asked a series of questions on Friday in regard to A.J. Brown telling reporters that the Eagles were improvising on the final play of the Seattle game. It included this exchange, which I’ve truncated a bit:
Q. The other part is why they’re improvising in that moment. Is that something that you are okay with? What type of freedom does Jalen have in that respect? (Tim McManus)
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, he has total freedom to do what he needs to do to make a play. Sometimes that’s going to work and sometimes that’s not going to work. Freedom is being able to go up to the — like it’s very rare — not very rare, but when you have success on offense, you’re going to see different things that you didn’t anticipate getting on tape. That’s happened to us multiple times this year, where there are things that are happening that you don’t anticipate on tape, and sometimes you make those adjustments on the sideline, sometimes the player makes the adjustments.
That’s what you work so hard through the training camps and OTAs, here is what we like versus this, versus this. Yes, this has answers versus this or this has answers versus everything, but this is an ideal thing to get to in these scenarios.
So, you constantly talk about those things. Like I said, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s the right time to do it and sometimes it’s not the right time.
I always say this, and Frank Reich used to talk to me about this, one of the greatest backup quarterbacks of all-time, right, he’s like a quarterback is going to make four to five plays in a game with his mind that are going to change the game.
Sometimes that’s something that he sees and it’s part of a check, and sometimes it’s something that he sees that he gets to. I just think that’s standard practice from high school football to — probably more so in college football, to NFL football.
…
I think Jalen does a really good job of that. Has done a lot of good things with that.
When it doesn’t go right, like in particular in that game, you have to be able to say, ‘okay, we’ll fix it. This might not have been the time to do it, or this was the right time to do it.’
No one is going to bat a thousand within those decisions. I know this: He’s doing this a lot more and it’s working than it’s not working in that particular case.
Could be wrong, but I don’t think Sirianni has ever said this. He and Brian Johnson have both talked about Hurts going to the line of scrimmage with play calls that can go one of several ways based on the defensive alignment, which we’d call a “check” more than an “audible.” I’d draw a distinction there. Of course, Sirianni lied to us a few weeks ago when he said they were looking for pass interference in Seattle, so who knows what’s true and what’s false anymore. Nothing matters. Life is meaningless and we should all embrace nihilism.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com