Nick Sirianni gives votes of confidence to Eagles youngsters Reed Blankenship, Cam Jurgens

PHOENIX — A week before returning to Arizona for the first time since Super Bowl LVII, the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni drew on his experience coaching on football’s biggest stage in a text to a family member.

His brother’s nephew was preparing for a New York state championship basketball game and Sirianni offered him some words of encouragement, referencing the title games he’d played and coached in throughout his life.

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“‘It’s always about the journey,’” Sirianni recounted during his news conference Tuesday at the NFL owners’ meetings. “‘Go enjoy this journey. But the journey’s a lot more sweet when you win it.’”

“They actually won that,” Sirianni added. “I don’t think it had anything to do with my pep talk.”

Sirianni hit on a wide range of topics during a 30-minute sit-down with reporters Tuesday morning, from free agency moves and coaching hires to the process of picking back up after the Eagles’ 38-35 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs last month.

The sting of the loss, understandably exacerbated by a hasty return to the Phoenix area, will be difficult to overcome going into a shortened offseason. The track record of teams returning to the Super Bowl after losing the previous year is dubious; only three teams in league history have won a championship after losing the previous year’s Super Bowl, with only the 2018 New England Patriots doing so since the early 1970s.

When asked about handling the emotions of starting over after the loss, Sirianni referenced a video of Jalen Hurts released by the team before last year’s playoffs.

“It just makes you more hungry,’ Sirianni said of the emotions of starting over after the loss. “There’s that clip of Jalen talking. It’s like, ‘I’m not hungry, I’m starving; I’m starving for this [expletive].’ ... I know that’s the sentiment of the guys in that locker room. I know that’s the sentiment of coaches. I sure know it’s the sentiment of me. More determined than ever.”

“We don’t [care] about what the numbers say of who was able to get back to the Super Bowl,” Sirianni added. “All we’re going to focus on is, ‘Here’s what the numbers say, here’s what we’d love to do again, but it’s going to take day-in, day-out work.’”

Sirianni spoke publicly for the first time since hiring Taver Johnson to replace Dennard Wilson as the Eagles’ secondary coach. Wilson was passed over for the Eagles’ defensive coordinator job last month despite player support and a track record of helping maximize several members of the team’s secondary during his two-year tenure. He was hired as the Baltimore Ravens’ secondary coach days after leaving the Eagles.

The Eagles head coach said Tuesday that the two sides agreed to part ways, but wouldn’t say whether he offered Wilson the chance to stay on staff with his previous title.

“We obviously loved our time with him,” Sirianni said. “The players feel very strongly about Dennard, how good of a football coach he is. I feel how good of a football coach he is. It was just best that we parted ways in that situation, but I wish him nothing but the best.”

Sirianni also said the similarities between new defensive coordinator Sean Desai and former DC Jonathan Gannon’s schemes has led to few changes in the types of players the team will prioritize in the draft. Gannon and Desai each use two-high safety defenses, although Desai is more influenced by Vic Fangio, the architect of the zone-heavy scheme adopted by roughly a third of the league’s defenses.

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“There’s a lot of similarities because it’s a similar defense,” Sirianni said. “That’s one of the reasons — obviously Sean was the best guy for the job, but also there wasn’t going to be a lot of change in terms of the base part of the defense. Obviously there will be some slightly different things that we’re going to do, but the player profile, the traits that we’re looking for are similar.”

The combination of right guard Isaac Seumalo signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers and center Jason Kelce returning to the Eagles could set the stage for Cam Jurgens to shift to guard.

The team’s second-round pick last year spent his first season studying as Kelce’s heir apparent and doesn’t have prototypical guard size at 6-foot-3, 303 pounds. Still, he profiles similarly to Seumalo (6-4, 303) and Sirianni said Jurgens has positional versatility to play guard.

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“We have a lot of confidence in Cam,” Sirianni said. “We’re excited that he can play multiple positions. To say ‘leader in the clubhouse’ at this particular time, we still have a lot of things to go through before we have to make any decisions in that matter. We’ll see where we go with him.”

After losing both starting safeties from last season’s team, the Eagles have question marks on the back end of their defense.

General manager Howie Roseman has already made efforts to replace C.J. Gardner-Johnson (Detroit) and Marcus Epps (Las Vegas), signing former Pittsburgh Steelers starter Terrell Edmunds and former New Orleans Saints defensive back Justin Evans. Edmunds figures to be in the starting lineup, but Evans is more of a flier considering his extensive injury history the last few years, which sidelined him for three seasons.

On Tuesday, Sirianni said he’d be comfortable with Reed Blankenship, an undrafted rookie out of Middle Tennessee State last year, being a full-time starter. He started four games last season when Gardner-Johnson was sidelined.

“We had confidence in him on a 16-4 team last year to start games,” Sirianni said. “So we have a lot of confidence that he can do the same thing this year. ... We like the [position] room that we have right now and we’ll see what we can do to continue to go with that.”

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