Deciphering Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni's Pre-Combine Press Conferences
Turning coachspeak into clarity
For one week every year, Indianapolis becomes the center of the universe. NFL coaches and general managers come together to eat steak, make deals, and watch a bunch of college graduates work out. It’s like the Super Bowl for general managers, sometimes more than the actual Super Bowl.
The NFL Combine officially kicked off the 2026 offseason this week. It’s where prospects become highly touted, backroom conversations spark blockbuster trades, and agents pursue player prerogatives. The combine is where the action happens. It’s like watching that Fast and the Furious movie where Tyrese and Ludacris go to space. You’re not quite sure what’s happening, but you know a lot is going on.
As teams arrived in Indianapolis, coaches and general managers from across the league made themselves available to the media. For most teams, this is the first time their key decision-makers have spoken publicly since Seattle took home the Lombardi trophy three weeks ago. It’s an opportunity for fans to get a glimpse into the direction of their team before free agency kicks off player acquisition on March 11.
We look for general managers to tip their hand about draft plans, trade demands, and how they’ll use free agency. We look to learn about philosophies, player dynamics, and evolving schemes from coaches. We want to hear how we’ll be better next year and who we can expect to be on the team. The only issue is that most press conferences don’t tell you any of that.
When the mic is hot and the cameras are on, NFL GMs and coaches communicate in coachspeak. It’s a language of platitudes that requires context and reading between the lines to pull any strand of intention. The truth is flattened and smoothed over until the only purpose of words is to absorb silence, move air. Responses are so vague that they seem to serve no other purpose than to move on from a reporter’s question.
“We need to get better wide receivers” becomes “we love the guys in our room, but we’re always looking for opportunities to improve.” “Our offense struggled last year” becomes “we did some good things and some not so good things on that side of the ball.” Communicating the truth isn’t the goal.
For head coaches, coachspeak feels less tactical and more cultural. I’m convinced this is the only way that they know how to communicate outside of the locker room. But for GMs, the truth is a weapon to be wielded delicately. Intentions are meant to be hidden to maintain some semblance of control in dealing with agents, players, and rival teams. GMs choose words carefully. As Tom Wambsgans once said, information is “like a bottle of fine wine. You store it, you hoard it, you save it for a special occasion, and then you smash someone’s face in with it.”
Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni both took part in press conferences earlier in the week with their fair share of coachspeak. The Birds have made some significant changes in the past two months after a disappointing season. With trade rumors around A.J. Brown, free agents like Jaelan Phillips, Reed Blankenship, and Nakobe Dean, and a new offensive coordinator hire, we look to Howie and Nick to tell us where the Eagles are headed and what their intentions are come March and April.
So to help, allow me to be your coachspeak translator. It’s like if the NFL Network made a version of Rosetta Stone. We’ll dive into quotes from Howie and Nick and see if we can piece together all of the jargon to pull out some key thoughts about the Eagles’ intentions this offseason.
Howie Roseman
On Brandon Graham
“I mean, Brandon Graham is always welcome in Philadelphia. Obviously, when I think about what he’s done for us as a player, as a person, and then last year, even when he came back and the versatility he showed…just an all-time Eagles great and future Eagles Hall of Famer.”
TRANSLATION: The year is 2040. Howie Roseman hovers his flying car to Brandon Graham’s house. The Eagles are one year removed from their 5th straight Super Bowl under Coach Jason Kelce, but their star pass rusher, Fletcher Cox Jr., just went out for the season. Howie knocks on the door of an old friend and asks him to come back for one more ride. 51-year-old Brandon Graham unretires to become the oldest player to record a tackle.
On the pass rush group
“We usually take 7 or 8 guys to camp; we only have three on the roster right now. It’s a priority position for us, and we’ll try to manage our own guys, free agency, and the draft. It always starts up front for us in Philadelphia.”
TRANSLATION: We’ll be active in taking fliers on high upside free agent edge rushers, but expect us to get back to basics in the draft by taking advantage of a deep class of edge rushers to add some youth to our room. Also, Jaelan Phillips is a priority, and if we can’t afford him, it will break my heart.
On Jake Elliot
“Tremendously clutch, I have a lot of confidence in him as a player, as a kicker, as a person, as a captain on our team, and continue to believe in him as our place kicker.”
TRANSLATION: I’m not taking on a $6.5M dead cap hit to cut a kicker, so get it together Jake!
On hiring Sean Mannion
“For us, casting a wide net, being able to hear everyone’s vision, have them articulate to us…how it would fit our players, because it’s always about our players. With Sean, it was just the system of play he wanted to run, how he was gonna articulate it, how he was going to do that with all of our players.”
TRANSLATION: We wanted to find someone who could maximize Jalen Hurts and build a system that can help him grow while accentuating his strengths. Sean had a clear plan to do that within a system (inspired by the Shanahan-McVay offense) that we’ve always been intrigued by.
On the cornerbacks group
“When you look at Q and Coop leading that group, two All-Pro players, guys who want to be part of the Philadelphia Eagles for a long time. And Coop, he can play anything, he can play outside corner, he can play nickel, he can play at an All-Pro level anywhere. So having him here gives you some flexibility. So we’ll go into the offseason and look to add to that position. Adoree did a really nice job for us last year and got better over the course of the year, and just like any position, he’s a free agent, and we’ll just see how the offseason plays out.”
TRANSLATION: Thanks for the memories, Adoree Jackson! We’ll look at bringing in a cornerback through the draft and hedge our bets by filling the room with a few free agents on short-term deals. We know we have two elite corners at key positions (who we plan on paying to keep here for a while), so we are cool with having a replacement-level dude at the second spot in Fangio’s defense. We can’t take resources away from paying our young defensive stars.
On Cooper DeJean
“Elite player at the nickel position. When you have someone who’s elite at something…and you move them, he can be elite as an outside corner too, but when he’s able to affect the run game, he’s able to affect the pass game, the screen game from there, and you just see the difference that he makes in that role.”
TRANSLATION: I see all of your tweets about moving Cooper DeJean to the outside full-time, and we will not be doing that. He’s an elite slot cornerback, and we think he makes the biggest impact there. We will be paying him a lot of money soon, and I’d trust this 23-year-old with my life.
On trading players
“We have a value for every player on the roster….that doesn’t mean we’d trade them. But at the same time, we gotta be open to listen. That’s what a lot of this week is about, that’s what a lot of the first couple weeks of free agency is about. That doesn’t mean there will necessarily be action, but you have to be willing to listen. We’ll do that during the draft as well. And decide what’s best for the Philadelphia Eagles. At the end of the day, everything we do is about what’s best for the Philadelphia Eagles so that we can try to compete and hopefully win another championship.”
TRANSLATION: We’re not afraid to trade anyone (looking at you, A.J. Brown).
On Dallas Goedert
“Yeah, a tremendous player and person for the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m really glad we were able to figure it out and bring him back to Philadelphia this year and for this season and (he was) tremendously productive for us. Just a huge asset for our offense to have him on our football team...but we’ll certainly sit down with his agent here over the next couple days and have a conversation. Very appreciative of Dallas Goedert.”
TRANSLATION: If the price is right, we’d love to have Dallas back. He could be our Tucker Kraft. He fits everything we want a tight end to be. But if he’s chasing the paper, he may have to get that paycheck somewhere else. We’ll see what his market looks like.
On team building
“Yeah, I think you’ve got to go back to how you want to build the team, first and foremost. What are your priorities in building the team? Because when we have this many players coming up for second contracts on their rookie deals, it’s going to be hard for us to keep all of them. The good news is we have a compensatory system where we can get some draft picks back in the future for some of these guys who’ve meant so much to us.”
TRANSLATION: We’re okay losing Jaelan Phillips, Nakobe Dean, and Reed Blankenship because it means we’ll get compensatory picks in next year’s draft to bring in cheap talent. That’s how we keep the train running as players get more expensive. We’ll push to keep at least one of those guys, but we’re not going to stretch ourselves because we have a lot of young players we need to pay.
On Jalen Hurts
“This system, we think is going to be really good for him, as a lot of our other players. He’s always looking for a system of play. And we think we have that.”
TRANSLATION: Is the Shanahan-system what you want Jalen!? Are you not entertained?
On A.J. Brown
“I think that at the end of the day, there’s a lot of conversations in the offseason about players, on your team, on other teams. That’s really the job…But at the end of the day, again, we’re trying to get better. And it’s hard to do that if you’re just subtracting great players. We’ll do whatever’s in the best interest of our team to be better for this year and going forward, anything that puts us in a position that we think to potentially win another championship. So every decision will be made with that, no matter who the player is.”
TRANSLATION: We’re better off with A.J. Brown, but feel free to make us an offer we can’t refuse. We’re down to talk trade, but we won’t settle for less value to move on from A.J.
On the linebacker position
“I think obviously, we have a free agent at that position, and a guy that we drafted, a guy we think is a really good player, for sure, and unbelievable character. And so all those decisions here will be made in the next couple of weeks.”
TRANSLATION: We most likely won’t be resigning Nakobe Dean. It’s Jihaad Campbell time.
On Reed Blankenship
“Really proud of Reed. Undrafted free agent and played in two Super Bowls. Four years, four playoff appearances, was a captain this year for our team. A tremendous player, a tremendous person. And that’s how I feel about Reed.”
TRANSLATION: I love Reed, but I’m not in love with Reed. Would love him back if the price is right.
On Jaelan Phillips
“Well, you certainly see his fit with Coach Fangio and our defense, which a lot of times when you’re talking about free agency is a big part of free agency. How is this guy going to fit into our defense? So you see that there. He’s got tremendous character, tremendous work ethic.”
TRANSLATION: If Jaelan Phillips leaves, I will cry. He’s our priority free agent. Maybe we can get him at the right price due to injury history.
Nick Sirianni
On the hiring process for offensive coordinator
“We don’t leave anything to chance. We’re going to go through our process and hey, how are you going to call this situation? How are you thinking about this situation? You can ask them game plan scenarios from games that they’ve been around. There’s a lot of different ways to do that.”
TRANSLATION: Throughout this process I would call Sean Mannion in the middle of the night and shout over the phone “WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON 3RD AND LONG WITH 2:32 LEFT IN THE FOURTH QUARTER?” I’d slip notes into his mail box that would say, “Draw me a game winning play and send it back to me before this message self destructs.” We are very thorough in our process.
On hiring Sean Mannion
“There’s a lot of steps to take place before we know exactly what version of this offense is going to be. But obviously, Sean comes from a family of coaches, and things that he’s done that we really respect, that we know are tough to defend. We know we’ve done a lot of good things here as well as far as some of the things that are hard to defend…but really it’s always important at the end of the day that we’re able to run the football and be able to do play action off of that.”
TRANSLATION: I want to see what’s up with this Shanahan system. Our running game is the focal point of our offense, and we want to build everything based on that foundation.
On Saquon Barkley
“My experience with great football players is you come in, and you’re like, hey, Saquon we’re going to run inside zone. And he’s going to be really good at it…guys that are great football players can fit into a lot of different offenses…he’s been highly productive in many of the schemes.”
TRANSLATION: I believe this offense revolves around Saquon Barkley first and foremost.
On what he looks for in tight ends
“I think it’s always important that tight ends are able to create mismatches in the pass game…and then being able to be effective in the run game. We’ve been in the top 10 or top 5 in rushing obviously in all the years, but this year. And it’s important that they’re highly involved in that and being able to block tough matchups with defensive ends, or linebackers, or whoever it may be.”
TRANSLATION: I still have not learned my lesson that tight ends shouldn’t be blocking defensive ends one-on-one.
On hiring Chris Kuper as offensive line coach
“As we talked to guys we were really impressed by Chris and the things that he’s done as a player, as a coach, and his knowledge on the game, his knowledge on a system, that some of the things that we’re going to do from that system, because there’s a lot of intricacies within that. And so, just excited about everything that he’ll bring.
TRANSLATION: Chris was hired because of his familiarity with this system, which is very different from how our offensive line has played up to this point.
On Brandon Graham coming back
“You always want to try to bring back as many guys as you possibly can, as far as having good football players, good people around. And so obviously, when you ask me this question, whether it be about Josh Sweat or whoever it may be, you always want your guys back…you don’t win as many games as we’ve won together and especially a guy like BG and say, no…. of course you want guys like that back.”
TRANSLATION: God, I miss Josh Sweat
On DeVonta Smith
“I think we saw DeVonta have a great year. And I think you just continue to see him play better and better. And I think that’s a tribute to who he is. Guys that are tough, that love football, that are smart football players, and they’re talented, have a tendency to reach their ceiling…you’re seeing him continue to get better. You’re seeing him continue to make plays that only he can make on the football field…excited about what he’ll look like in this new offense that we’ll have.”
TRANSLATION: DeVonta Smith is so good you won’t even miss A.J. Brown. Trust me, this guy is going to be even better in our new offense, and he’s just scratching the surface. And he doesn’t yell at me on the sidelines.
On the tush push
“I think there’s some things that teams did this year, they did a good job of being able to stop it. And we got to get back to being able to, we either have to get back to being able to be as dominant as we were at it, or we find new avenues to be able to convert on third down or in the redzone…we got to coach it better, we got to execute it better and looking forward to seeing where that goes in the future.”
TRANSLATION: No one is talking about the tush push this year. The league isn’t even trying to ban it because it’s less effective. We probably won’t use it as much as we have in the past, and will be a little more intentional with our use of it. In the meantime, we’ll explore other short yardage options.