Opening Statement:"My hat goes off to the Cardinals and the nice job that they did coaching and playing. They executed better than we did. We went out in the second half and made a couple adjustments at halftime on both sides of the ball, but we just weren't able to put it together for the win on either side of the ball."
On why the Eagles' pass-rush was so much better in the second half: "We did a couple things adjustment wise with a few different pressures and blitzes."
On gaining the lead and the following Cardinals' touchdown drive: "It's tough. You don't want that to happen obviously, especially after getting yourself in a position to win the game. I expected the guys to step up, they expected to step up, but it didn't happen. Again, my hat goes off to the other team."
On the problems the Eagles had defensively the first half: "We weren't able to pressure the quarterback as well as we should have. We did a nice job of getting a few underneath routes but we didn't pass it off the proper way."
On what he wants to take away from this season as a whole: "Well the guys fought and I'm proud of them for that. This is a very sudden thing when you lose in the playoffs. Our reality is there is one happy team at the end of the year. You are in the playoffs, you expect to move on, right now that hurts."
On if this loss hurt more than previous playoff losses: "They all hurt. You have different guys, every team is different and they all hurt; the players, the coaches, nobody feels good about that."
On how this affects players like QB Donovan McNabb and RB Brian Westbrook who have been around for a while: "You don't really know. You say 'next time' but you can't really do that with this, that's not how this works. You want to take care of opportunities when they are given to you and that's what makes this so sudden and disappointing."
On what offensive adjustments were made at halftime:
"We did some shallow crossing routes and we did some short stops on the outside."
On how the missed extra point affected them: "It's uncharacteristic of David (Akers) and so was the field goal. Those are things that in these games you can't afford to miss. Then that touchdown scored (by the Cardinals) down the stretch that puts it at a tie with a field goal with those points. Like I said they ended up scoring a touchdown so it didn't matter. They did a better job."
On if the Cardinals took them by surprise at all: "They did a nice job the first half. They played better football than we did. We put ourselves in a binder. We had to come back by quite a little bit and we did ,but you have to give (the Cardinals) credit for rallying it up and punching in that last touchdown."
On this loss overall: "This year is different than other years. They are all different. We've been over the hump and into the Super Bowl if this is what you consider 'the hump,' so we didn't do it this time."
On the false start penalties in the first half: "Obviously it was loud but I thought for the most part we handled it okay. We did have a couple penalties that we shouldn't have."
On if he felt prepared going into the game: "I thought we were. I didn't think it was a lack of effort. We had some missed assignments and we just weren't clicking. Nothing on either side of the ball was working. The next half we got it straightened out better but I don't think it was a lack of effort."
