Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni spoke with the media on Tuesday ahead of the team’s season opener versus the New England Patriots.
During the press conference, Sirianni expressed his admiration for Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick.
“Obviously, just honored to be able to coach against him on Sunday,” Sirianni said. “I have always been fascinated about Coach Belichick and his style of coaching and why he’s been successful.”
Sirianni credited Brian Daboll for mentoring him early in his coaching career and said that Daboll had learned his process from his time with Belichick.
Check out the video below.
Sirianni Admits That Defense Was ‘Vanilla’ During Preseason
Though Sirianni has a ton of respect for the Patriots’ legendary head coach, he will have to find a way to outsmart him on the sidelines on Sunday.
Luckily, the Eagles will have a few things playing in their favor this weekend.
One of those things is the lack of tape on Sean Desai’s nickel defense.
The Eagles plan on using defensive coordinator Sean Desai’s inexperience as an advantage.
In the NFL, there aren’t a lot of unknowns, which makes this particular situation unique.
As a first-year defensive coordinator, there isn’t a lot of video footage on Desai’s defense, which could actually help the Eagles on Sunday against one of the brightest minds in the NFL.
Sirianni admitted that Philadelphia kept its defense relatively simple during the preseason in order to limit the amount of intel available for its opponents.
“I think anytime there is unknown, that is an advantage,” Sirianni said. “So, I always think that’s why we were very vanilla in the preseason. We didn’t want to show a lot of different things that we plan on doing.”
Obviously, Belichick is a master game planner and with all summer to prepare for this Week 1 matchup, any unknowns are considered a good thing.
