How a coach nicknamed ‘Smash’ had Nick Sirianni prepared for the weird goal-line scenario vs. the Commanders
Plus, Sirianni responds to Jalen Hurts’ “straitjacket” comment.
Shawn Hochuli, the chief referee in the NFC championship game, raised a few eyebrows Sunday when he turned his microphone on and announced to the football-watching world that he was on the verge of awarding the Eagles points because of repeated offside penalties by the Washington Commanders.
In Washington’s defense, the Tush Push has become virtually unstoppable, but the game has to go on at some point, right?
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Right.
“Washington has been advised that at some point the referee can award a score if this type of behavior happens again,” Hochuli said.
On the Eagles’ sideline, Nick Sirianni had seen enough of Commanders linebacker Frankie Luvu jumping over the line of scrimmage and onto the injured back of his Pro Bowl center, Cam Jurgens.
“I remember saying to the referees on the side,” Sirianni said Tuesday, “‘Hey, they keep doing this, it can be a touchdown, right?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, that is correct.’”
“Simply put, a team can’t commit multiple fouls in an effort to prevent the score,” Hochuli told a pool reporter after the game. “If it’s meant to prevent a score, we can essentially award the score.”
A few years ago, Sirianni had no clue that rule existed. When Sirianni worked as an offensive assistant with the Chargers, the team had an assistant coach, Dan Shamash, who handled game management situations.
Sirianni said he couldn’t remember why the topic came up, but Shamash, who currently is with the New York Jets and is known by the nickname “Smash,” told Sirianni once on the sideline that the Chargers could be awarded points when the defense kept committing infractions in a similar situation.
“I remember saying to Smash, ‘That’s not a rule. Are you out of your mind?’” Sirianni said. “Like I remember saying that to him, like, ‘That’s not a rule.’ And I remember him being very emphatic with me because he knows the rules really well and telling me it was.”
Sirianni texted Smash after the game Sunday. “Smash, you were right,” he said.
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Speaking of raised eyebrows ...
Jalen Hurts had this to say after the game Eagles’ 55-23 victory on Sunday about Sirianni: “I guess he let me out of my straitjacket a little bit today.”
Hurts was asked to follow up on that comment but elected to answer a different question rather than go down that path.
Asked about it Tuesday, Sirianni smiled and said: “I think he was having fun after the game. We’ve been winning a couple different ways this year. I think he was just having fun after the game.”
Perhaps similar to when Hurts sat at the podium in the interview room at Lincoln Financial Field after the Eagles beat the Pittsburgh Steelers behind the resurgence of their maligned passing game and said: “So that’s what y’all wanted to see, huh?”
Hurts wasn’t charged with leading a high-powered passing attack as the Eagles, behind MVP candidate Saquon Barkley and a top-tier offensive line, won games with their running game and their dominant defense.
He isn’t playing the same way the Eagles needed him to play when he was an MVP candidate himself two years ago when the Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs met in the Super Bowl.
But the Eagles got plenty out of him Sunday. Hurts completed 20 of his 28 pass attempts for 246 yards and a touchdown. He also had three scores on the ground, two via the Tush Push that Washington tried so desperately to stop.
“I know this, and he’s said this plenty of times, he doesn’t care how we win, I don’t care how we win, as long as we win,” Sirianni said.
“I thought he was having fun with that after the game, and I just loved how he went out and executed and prepared for this game. I always admire the heck out of how hard he works regardless of the situation. He’s the same guy every day, his mentality, his work ethic.
“We had to win a different way this game and we did, and we showed that we can win multiple ways. I think that shows the type of team we have and the type of selflessness we have on our team, starting with Jalen.”
This time around
The Eagles coaching staff typically meets the day after games to go over what went well and what didn’t. The morning of Feb. 13, 2023, was no different.
Sirianni said the Eagles will be putting some of those morning-after notes from the Super Bowl two years ago to work this week.
“It does come back to what we’ve talked about all year of controlling what you can control,” Sirianni said.
He didn’t go into details about what the Eagles are changing, but there’s a familiarity with how the next two weeks look that will inform what they do regarding on-field practicetime this week and game-planning given the chaos of Super Bowl week and the media obligations that come with it once the Eagles land in New Orleans.
“You got to get a good portion of [the plan] done because the schedule is a little different next week,” Sirianni said.
The Eagles will fly to New Orleans on Sunday or Monday. Monday is Super Bowl Opening Night at Caesars Superdome, the first of four consecutive days of hourlong media obligations for coaches and players.