Eagles Nick Sirianni Does Some Math, Reveals Two Big Numbers, And Talks Jalen Hurts

Philly's head coach talke about tackling and turnovers and like what he has seen from Jalen Hurts' ball security

Aug 1, 2024; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter (98) runs drills during a training camp practice at Lincoln Financial Field. Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports / Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA – Nick Sirianni crunched some numbers coming out of the 14-13 win over the Patriots last Thursday night and revealed them to the media when he spoke over the weekend.

Those numbers: 4 and 20.

Start with No. 4. That is how many tackles the Eagles coach said the defense missed in New England. It felt like more, maybe, because two came on the same play with James Bradberry and Jeremiah Trotter, Jr., whiffing in the open field on Patriots receiver Ja’Lynn Polk.

Sirriani added another number in there, and that was 1, which he said was how many tackles his team missed in the opener against the Ravens.

“You're going to have missed tackles, but thought we tackled well,” said the coach about last Thursday’s game. “I know I’m saying the four missed ones, but there are also a lot of plays that happen during a game. So, again, we hit our percentage of what we wanted to do. Defense tackled well, defense pursued to the football well, so I'd say that as a whole, on defense we played with good fundamentals.”

As for the No. 20, that’s how many wins the Eagles have the past three years with Sirianni as the head coach when they win the turnover battle.

Nick Sirianni / Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

“We put so much emphasis on winning the turnover battle,” he said. “I don't know if you guys know, I went over this with the team the other day, but in the past three years – 2021, 2022, 2023 – when we’ve won the turnover battle, we're 20-1. We were 6-1 in '21; we were 10-0 in '22; and I believe we were 4-0 last year, which that - ours are even higher than the league average as far as just the turnover battle.”

Sirianni brought up that nugget when asked on Saturday about quarterback Jalen Hurts, who still has not thrown an interception in 14 training camp practices and two preseason games, and there are just three camp practices and one preseason game remaining.

“What I've seen is like that can go a couple different ways, right?” he said. “That can go where he's not taking risks, but I don't see it that way. I see him pushing the ball down the field and taking the plays that are there, and when the play he wants is not there, he's checking it down. So, he's playing really good football.

“And so that's a product of him. He's taking what the defense is giving him. That's good quarterback play, right? Good quarterback play, the quarterback play I get so excited about is, ‘Hey, we have this shot on or we have this intermediate chunk on and they didn't give it to you and then we take a checkdown for 10 yards.’ That's awesome football.

“That gets me more excited than sometimes the big wild plays. That's just the development of a quarterback and making plays, and so that's what he's done.”

The Eagles have won the turnover battle in their first two preseason games. They haven’t committed any while the two they have gotten were huge in the outcome.

The first was Patrick Johnson’s strip-sack fumble recovery in the waning seconds to set up a Jake Elliott game-winning kick in Baltimore, the other an interception from Avonte Maddox in the end zone to take away any hopes the Patriots had of scoring early points.

“Explosive plays are important as well,” said Sirianni continuing on about Hurts. “Jalen has just done a really nice job of delivering the football where it needs to go and making great decisions with the football. Man, I couldn't be more happy with where he is right now.”

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