Nick Sirianni

Eagles HC Nick Sirianni said that the team wants to evolve offensively and said that he had to get more involved as the season went on. 

“We did some different things as we continued to go through,” Sirianni said, via PFT. “Like I told you guys, I did more, got involved more. At the end of the day, I did what I thought was best for the football team. We didn’t reach our goals, so, obviously, it didn’t work out.”

Eagles

• Eagles HC Nick Sirianni twice said he wants to evolve as an offense: “I’m looking for the best guy to help us do that.” (Brooks Kubena)
• Eagles GM Howie Roseman when asked how much whether an OC will be around for longer a year will factor into the search: “As much as you’d like to have continuity … you want to win.” (Kubena)
• Roseman then listed things he believed Nick Sirianni was “elite” at. These are what the Eagles value about Sirianni: – “Being a head coach” – “Building connection with our team” – “Talking about fundamentals, game management, situational awareness” – “Bringing the team together” – “Holding people accountable.” (Kubena)
• Roseman: “As you get better, you have a natural arc of the team. I think that when you look at our team, we draft a lot of offensive players, we re-signed a lot of offensive players, we drafted a lot of defensive players that were young on rookie contracts. There’s natural transition in what we do. I’m not making an excuse or anything, but there’s a national transition in that in terms of what you’re paying your guys, which side of the ball you’re paying guys who are coming up. The important thing for us is that there are players that we can’t lose. I mean obviously, we are going to do what’s best for us, and we’re not going to do whatever it takes to do whatever it takes, within reason, and we want to keep [guys] around here because they’re really good players, homegrown players that are really good people that are part of our core. “With that, you’re going to have to make sacrifices. That’s on me to make sure that the sacrifices we make are filled in with really good players again. I’m proud, since coach has been here, of our first- and second-day draft success. I think we’ve drafted 15 guys since Nick has been here in the first and second day, and 14 of them have been long-term starters. We’ve got to keep hitting like that. I know that’s hard, but we’ve got to keep doing it. That means we have to have a good process. We’ve got to understand the people that we’re bringing into the building. We’ve got to understand the roles and the vision that we have for them when they’re playing. If we do that, good things will happen. We’ll be able to keep the players that we need to keep under long-term contracts and have an influx of young players that are really good that can play at a high level.” (Zach Berman)

Panthers

Panthers RB Rico Dowdle had a strong stretch in the middle of the season, but his carries decreased as the year wound down. Carolina GM Dan Morgan made clear that his diminishing usage had nothing to do with Dowdle being an impending free agent and points out that Chuba Hubbard‘s return impacted how they distributed things. 

“There’s only so many carries to go around, there’s only so many drives,” Morgan said, via PanthersWire. “Him not being as productive on the backend, or just our running backs in general not being as productive on the backend, I think all of that works together. I think our offensive line has to be right, our receivers have to be blocking right. So it’s not just one guy or one thing. They all have to work together to get the run game going.”

Morgan said he met with Dowdle and didn’t get any inkling that the running back wants to move on. 

“I met with him, I had a really good conversation with him in my office upstairs,” Morgan said. “He didn’t give me any indication of that. I thought we left on a good note. We’ll see where it goes from here.”