Nick Sirianni doesn’t believe trap games exist in the NFL

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni spoke to the media on Friday ahead of practice, and explained why he doesn’t believe in trap games. He also talked about his players being focused on the Bears game and not the comments made by Cowboys players, and gave some insight into their developmental periods at practice and how that helps prepare the backup quarterbacks.

Here’s what the head coach had to say:

On trap games

Sirianni said that he doesn’t believe in trap games or trap teams, because if their preparation is the same each and every week, they don’t overlook anyone.

“Everybody in this league can play. Everybody in this league, if you’re not on your game, can beat you. We know about this team that we’re playing, whether their record is what is it, but they’ve been in every single game.”

He went on to say that he was watching the four-minute tape on Thursday and game-after-game, the Bears were within one score. The Bears are a good team, they have talent at every level, and they’re well-coached.

“As far as a trap game, that doesn’t exist in the NFL. You have to be on your game every single week.”

On the back-and-forth with the Cowboys

Sirianni said that he hasn’t had to talk to the players about being focused on the Bears, pointing out that any comments from the Eagles side have come due to reporters asking the guys about it, and most of the time they’ve reiterated their focus on Chicago this week.

The head coach said that they don’t take much stock in the comments from other people, and they are solely focused on doing what they need to win against the Bears. They are only worried about things they can control, which is their attention to detail in meetings and how they handle practice.

As for the coaches and players seemingly all being on the same page in terms of their focus on this week’s game, Sirianni said that it’s something that comes from the whole organization. They’re all on the same page, and they are all solely focused on how they can get better each day — although he admits that he preaches it every day, he hears it from the players, as well.

On the backup QBs

“We do a lot of developmental periods, a lot of developmental periods. And so — this year we’ve done something a little different, as far as one of our periods each day at practice are twos vs. ones. Kind of like we did in camp, so we’re doing that throughout the year, and what’s been really beneficial about that — so, you have your normal periods of O and D vs scout team, and then you have these periods where you’re actually doing your plays on offense, the twos vs ones. And you’re doing that because not everything is scripted up the way you think it’s going to be scripted up in a game. You gotta be ready to handle unknowns. So, we’re running our plays as an offense against our defense with the twos, and so that’s a great opportunity for us also to correct those guys.”

Sirianni went on to say that with scout team reps, they don’t always get to watch and correct the film the same day, but with these ones vs twos periods, they do, which has been really beneficial. He also noted that they do a developmental 7-v-7 period at the end of every practice, as well. That time gives the QBs meaningful reps to be prepared to go into a game whenever they’re called to do so.

Other notables

• Sirianni talked about how they scouted Justin Fields when he was coming out of Ohio State, and noted that the QB had a big-time college career. They saw that he was able to make a lot of great throws and play with a lot of athleticism, and now he’s doing a good job developing as an NFL quarterback.
• The head coach didn’t want to give a specific answer for whether Dallas Goedert would play on Sunday. The TE did practice on Thursday and felt pretty good, and he’ll practice again on Friday and then they’ll see where he’s at.