Inside the Eagles situational meetings that helped propel a Super Bowl run -

PHOENIX — There are 13 seconds left in the Super Bowl, the ball is on the 37-yard line, the team with possession has no timeouts and needs a field goal. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni asks defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon for his call.

“It’s honestly one of the most stressful parts of the week,” Gannon said in a conversation with The Athletic.

Except he’s not talking about Super Bowl Sunday.

He’s talking about Saturday.

More than 200 million people will see the answer in real time. The team will find out in the Eagles’ last situational meeting on Saturday. Sirianni likes to use the Socratic method by putting his coordinators — and sometimes his players — on the spot to test what they would do. There’s no data to review or time to vacillate. The answer must come as quickly as it would the next day.

That situation was picked randomly by Gannon, who presented it as an example. Offensive coordinator Shane Steichen sits next to Gannon and will answer it for the offense.

“We are putting them in those scenarios, and it’s also by design to let the players hear it,” Sirianni said. “Because the players don’t have to call the play. They just have to react to the situation and the play that’s called. It’s kind of going in the same steps of the way a game would go. Shane will call a play, players know the scenario we are on, we give our reminders for that play or that scenario, and they have to go.”

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Sirianni is “obsessed” with situational football, and the Eagles practice what he preaches — literally. There are sessions devoted to specific situations, including at Wednesday’s walk-through to kick off their Super Bowl practices at the Arizona Cardinals facility.

There are situational meetings throughout the week, whether with multiple coaches on Tuesday or with select offensive coaches on Saturday morning or a 40-minute meeting called “Situational Saturday” with the entire team. Situational football is even a topic on random offseason days, when Sirianni will drill assistant coaches to consider how they’d react in any game situation one could imagine.

There’s a perception that a coach must think fast on the sideline. That’s not the case. As Sirianni explains it, the Eagles “think long and hard” about decisions they must make in five seconds. But it happens during the week, not on national television. If there’s a two-minute drill on Sunday, the process has already played out in the meeting room — and on Tuesdays and Saturdays throughout the season.

“You’re trying to put yourself in as many scenarios as you possibly can,” Sirianni said. “It’s never clearly black and white ever in this game, so you’re always trying to make it as close to it as you possibly can, because there are always little bits of gray. So, we worked hard there. Then we get into this scenario, and, yeah, we quiz. Everybody’s there. Shane has to make that call in less than 40 seconds, 10 seconds, to be able to let the players (know) — and it’s really quicker than that. Gannon has to make that call even quicker at times.”

The Eagles have won 16 of 19 games this season. The NFL’s most talented roster has much to do with it, but there’s also a belief that they can gain an advantage in situational football — a term that will bleed your ears inside the Eagles’ offices (and in the team hotel this week). Jalen Hurts brought it up unprompted on Thursday.

Whether it’s third or fourth down (they rank No. 5 in offensive DVOA in those situations and No. 6 in defensive DVOA, and have scored the most fourth-down touchdowns in the NFL); end of the half or end of the game (they have scored touchdowns or kicked a field goal in the final minute before halftime in 10 games this season); two-minute, four-minute, red zone, backed up in their own territory; preserving a lead; two-point conversions — these are all part of what has put the Eagles on the doorstep of winning this year’s Lombardi Trophy.

Scenarios such as DeVonta Smith rushing to the line to avoid a review on a fourth-down reception in the NFC Championship or punter Arryn Siposs saving a touchdown in Week 2 when he chased down a Vikings player after a blocked field goal were examples of how the situational meetings translate into games. Players marveled at how much time and attention the Eagles pay to specific situations.

“Of all the teams I’ve been on,” Gannon said, “nobody puts more time on this than us.”

When Sirianni started coaching in the NFL — on the Kansas City Chiefs staff, of all teams — he heard then-Chiefs coach Todd Haley share stories about Bill Parcells’ commitment to situational football. In one of the first training camp meetings Sirianni attended, there was a big board with different situations they needed to practice.

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Sirianni’s interest reached a new level when he met Frank Reich in San Diego. They became “really obsessed” with understanding game situations.

When Gannon came to Philadelphia, he brought a menu of end-of-half and end-of-game calls that could fit different scenarios. Since then, the volume has almost doubled based on discussions with Sirianni. The back of Gannon’s sheet includes handwritten end-of-game situations.

“Honestly, I don’t know if the menu will ever be complete because there’s s— that comes up where you’re like, ‘Holy s—, is that right?’” Gannon said. “And you have all these factors of field position, time, timeouts, score, how the game’s going. There’s (times) Nick’s like, ‘Hey, dude, this is your call, unless the score is this.’ It makes you think about that.”

If you catch Sirianni late in the week, chances are he can tell you different situations from games around the NFL the previous week. Jon Ferrari, the Eagles’ assistant general manager, is the rules expert in the organization and helps find clips of calls for review. Alex Tanney, the assistant quarterbacks coach, goes through different games to catalog decisions and plays that could be used as a resource.

Kevin Patullo, the Eagles’ passing game coordinator, is in a meeting with Sirianni and Steichen on Saturdays when they review game-management situations to prepare for the week. Are they going to take a timeout or push the tempo? What did a certain team do in the same situation last week? There was a situation they prepared for in Phoenix that stretches back to a play that occurred in Week 3.

“It’s great because … we get to all put ourselves in his shoes as the head coach and then it opens up the dialogue during the game,” Patullo said. “It’s kind of a neat conversation. I’m not sure if everybody does this, but it’s something that (Sirianni) had wanted to do and we kind of developed into a pretty cool thing for Shane, myself and him to go through. And really on game day, it makes it feel pretty easy because there’s situations that come up on tape and you’re (not) like, ‘Oh, man, we gotta talk through this one.’”

Tight end Dallas Goedert said his situational awareness has gone “through the roof” since Sirianni arrived, and he kicks himself for small moments that even avid fans might not notice. During a two-minute drill in the NFC Championship Game, Goedert threw the ball to the official instead of handing it to him. That was discussed in situational meetings.

“Little things like that,” Goedert said. “I noticed it right away when I did it. I’m like, ‘What am I doing? I know that’s not right.’ But Coach does a great job, each and every week, finding anything and everything that went on through the league. We go to high school, college, and we just find different ways to give an advantage because the difference between players is so slight in the NFL, whatever advantage you can get.”

The details matter, and Hurts said they could be the difference in a game. There was a November matchup between the Bills and Vikings when Minnesota didn’t convert a sneak at the goal line and Buffalo fumbled the ball on the quarterback-center exchange. These are routine plays that Hurts — and other teams — run. There’s something to learn, and the coaches are exhaustive about finding examples. Hurts’ father tells his son that a sophomore in high school throws an interception just like a professional quarterback.

“It’s all the same game, and there are situations that come through every level,” Hurts said.

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When discussing memorable examples shown in meetings, a few members of the organization referred to a Weber State long snapper who snapped the ball out of the end zone four times, resulting in safeties. There was a running back who ran out of bounds a half-yard before the sticks. There was a kick returner who let the ball drop before it hit the end zone and it was a live ball.

“It brings it to life when you’re gonna show the video,” Patullo said. “It’s harder just to make up a situation because you can’t show everything. … So that’s where the video kind of comes in. And then it kind of sinks in your brain.”

Sirianni even seeks outside help to prepare for game situations. Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy had a career record of 80-1 when his teams were leading by 14 points, Sirianni said, and the Eagles coach wanted to learn more. He reached out to a media relations staffer in Indianapolis to connect with Dungy earlier in the season when the Eagles kept playing with leads. Around the same time, Sirianni found an article that Parcells wrote for The 33rd Team and reached out to Haley to get Parcells’ number.

The headline of Parcells’ most recent article when Sirianni called? “‘Down-Down’ Situational Coaching Sorely Needed in Today’s NFL.”

The lessons about game situations are not limited to the football field. During the Philadelphia Phillies’ postseason run, Sirianni wanted to use a moment from Game 5 of the NLCS during the Saturday situational meeting. (The San Diego Padres bunted Trent Grisham with Ranger Suárez on the mound and a slick infield surface.) Patullo, a devoted golfer, passed along film of Tiger Woods’ approach on the 12th hole of the 2019 Masters to help him win the tournament. Sirianni has shown Villanova’s game-winning play against North Carolina in the 2016 national championship.

“Do we have to decide if we’re going to bunt or not in a certain situation? No,” Sirianni said. “But handling situations is handling situations.”

There’s another part of the meetings that Sirianni finds valuable. He spends most of his time during the week with the offense. The “Situational Saturdays” allow him to instruct the defense and special teams — to “coach the entire team,” as he likes to say.

It also allows him to coach the coaches. Gannon and Steichen better be prepared.

“I get called on about three, four times and he’ll throw up the tape,” Steichen said. “‘Hey, there are 14 seconds left. We got no timeouts. The ball is here. What’s your call?’”

The answer could come on Sunday. It’ll already be answered by Saturday.

(Photo: John Jones / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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