Nick Sirianni Begins Dallas Week Early, Talking Micah Parsons, and More

The Eagles coach was asked several questions about Sunday night's showdown at Lincoln Financial Field between his undefeated team and the one-loss Cowboys

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni held his weekly day-after press conference on Monday following Sunday’s 20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals that pushed his team to 5-0.

There was plenty of looking ahead to Sunday's primetime game against the Dallas Cowboys.

Here are three Dallas topics and one from Sunday's 20-17 win over the Cardinals:

COWBOYS QBS

When asked about the differences between Dak Prescott and Cooper Rush, Sirianni said he hadn’t dived too deeply into his Cowboys film study, yet. Rush is 4-0 in place of Prescott, but there’s a chance Prescott could return Sunday.

The coach deferred to defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon on the matter.

“I need to talk to him still because all my preparation has been on the defensive side so far, but I will say that Cooper Rush has done an excellent job,” he said. “I think the perception was like, 'Oh, Dak is hurt and they're in big trouble.' 

"This is a good football team, and this is a well-coached football team with really good football players all over it. So you're seeing that they've weathered the storm, and that speaks a lot of who Cooper Rush is.”

MICAH PARSONS

The 23-year-old from Harrisburg is a proven game-wrecker after just a year and change in the league. He has six sacks and can impact a game from anywhere he lines up.

“He'll be accounted for every single play,” said Sirianni. “That's doesn't mean he's not going to make some plays here and there. He's a really outstanding, outstanding player. I think we all know that. The league knows that. He's proved it for the last year and a half.”

Sirianni recalled his Chargers days under Mike McCoy and Frank Reich. He couldn’t remember who would ask him about game-wreckers like Parsons they were playing each week, either McCoy or Reich. Maybe it was both.

“We were playing the Broncos, (one of them would) ask me, ‘Hey, did you think about Von Miller today,’ when we were playing the Broncos, or ‘Did you think about Khalil Mack today’ when we were playing the Raiders,’ said Sirianni. “I said, ‘Everybody in his life didn't think about him as much as we thought about him today,’ and that's going to be the same way we roll this week (with Parsons).”

COWBOYS IN CONTROL

Eagles are 2-4 against the Cowboys dating back to 2019. Last year, the Eagles were outscored 92-46 combined in both games, with Dallas hanging 51 on the Eagles, who sat their starters and had to watch as Dallas made the second- and third-stringers look like JV players.

Sirianni said none of what happened before matters, and he’s right. 

There are four new starters on the Eagles’ defense that weren’t here last year – Haason Reddick, Kyzir White, James Bradberry, and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, not to mention rookie defensive tackle Jordan Davis.

A.J. Brown wasn’t here, either.

“This is a whole new year, whole new players,” said the coach. “What does Chauncey care about what the series have been in the past? What does A.J. … A.J. doesn't care about that. He's here to play this week.

“We know how big of a game it is because it's the Cowboys and we know how big of a game it is because it's the next one and we know how big of a game it is because it's a division game."

AJ BROWN

After catching three passes on four targets on the Eagles’ first drive, the WR was targeted just three more times.

It not so many words, Sirianni said that’s the way the cookie crumbles in this offense.

“Obviously we still have plays called for A.J., right?” the coach said. “It wasn't like, all right, he got us three and this is the week Dallas (Goedert) gets a lot and this is the week that DeVonta (Smith) gets a lot. We have things called for him.”

The coach pointed out that there was a throw intended for him that got batted down at the line of scrimmage or pressure comes from the edge and Jalen Hurts has to elude that rather than step in and throw to him.

“It's the same thing with DeVonta the first game,” he said. “We had a lot things called for DeVonta that first game, five or six things that just didn't end up getting completed. That's the way the game goes sometimes…It was almost like a perfect storm of how it happened, and we didn't get him the ball, and that's kind of the same case here.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.