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Eagles Defensive Coordinator Bill Davis
On whether he felt the game was in control after the first quarter:
"No, every drive is a new drive. There was so much football left and you never run away with a game in the first quarter. You have to play one down at a time, and 20 points is too many to give up today. They got the one where they picked or ran into [LB] DeMeco [Ryans] on the one touchdown. The other long one underneath on third down was another rub or pick type of play in man [coverage] that we didn't recover from. There were three big pass plays and two run plays where they hit us inside and we weren't in the right spots. We have some work to do because you can't give up those big ones. You have to make the plays."
On the play of the defense overall:
"We stopped the run. We had two big run plays that were bad. They got us in the middle of our defense, which they shouldn't have, but they did. In the second half, there was one around the edge that got us. Third down was good, and the red zone was going well until they caught that freak one that went up in the air. It looked like we were ahead of the game in terms of getting them out of the red zone without touchdowns. It was an up and down day."
On Miami's fourth-quarter touchdown pass to WR Jarvis Landry off of a tipped ball:
"We blitzed. If [LB] Connor Barwin does not tip it, we probably pick it off because we had two guys sitting right in their route. It went up in the air and I don't think the guys realized it. They didn't see it because they were in coverage, and by the time they realized it, they were just fighting for the ball."
On the strangeness of the Landry touchdown play:
"It just didn't go our way. They made a play. It was a crazy play."
On whether it was important for the defense to stop Miami on the ensuing drive following the injury to QB Sam Bradford:
"We really have to stop them on every drive, and that's what our goal is. There is no one drive that is more important than another regardless of the situation. We know that we have to come up with a stop."
On the defense playing well despite the loss:
"It wasn't good enough. Honestly, it wasn't good enough. This game is about winning. It's not about effort. We didn't get it done. 20 points is too many."
On how he evaluates the defense's performance when it plays well in a close loss:
"At the end of the day, we're all judged by the wins. It's about us making a play. I really don't have an answer other than we have to play better. It's not about statistics. That doesn't matter. It's about that scoreboard and points allowed, and we allowed one more point than they did today and that's why we lost. That really is the way we look at it. We have to play good enough defense to win the game and we didn't."
Eagles S Malcolm Jenkins
On the play of the defense overall:
"I thought we did a pretty good job other than the first drive, and they had one big play on another drive. They ended up scoring on a play on which the ball bounced off a defender's head and they end up coming down with it. That part is frustrating. This was a day that we didn't take the ball away as well. We had a couple of opportunities, and looking back, those could have been the difference in the game."
On the Miami touchdown pass to WR Jarvis Landry off of a tipped ball:
"I kind of turned and looked to where he was trying to throw. He was trying to throw to the guy that [CB Byron] Maxwell was covering in the back of the end zone. I didn't realize that Maxwell was kind of running at me, I turned around, and Landry had already kind of located the ball. At that point, I was just trying to get the ball out, but he came down with it."
On whether he would have played the play differently that resulted in the Landry touchdown if he had known the ball was tipped:
"If I see the ball there, I'm not going to try to go get it myself, and in a worst case scenario, I'll just slam [Landry] down because it was a tipped ball and there is no such thing as pass interference on a tipped ball."
On whether a team can have a good defensive unit that doesn't come up with takeaways:
"In terms of being a good defense, the easiest way to affect the game is to take the ball away. That's the stat that affects the game more than anything. You can be mediocre on everything else, but if you take the ball away, that changes the game. You can be a really good defense that doesn't take the ball away if you're good on third down, good in the red zone, and good in two-minute, but the easiest way to affect the game is to take the ball away."
On the frustration of this loss:
"It's a frustrating loss because it's obvious to a lot of people that we did things on our own to lose the game. We're at home and we have the advantage, and we had control of the game for the most part. Then all of the sudden, we started doing things to give it to the Dolphins. They're a team that did a good job of not making mistakes themselves, and that kept them in the game. They didn't turn the ball over, and they made a big play on special teams that put them back in the game. They basically just sat back and watched us mess it up. That's the frustrating part. From a record standpoint, regardless of what happens tonight, we're still in it. It sucks because we lost, but the way this division is setting up, we're still in it. We have to fix some things and we can't beat ourselves."
On why the team has struggled with self-inflicted mistakes:
"If I had the reason, we would have corrected it already. We work hard and this team prepares, and I know that it means a lot to everybody that goes out there. Week in and week out, we're giving it our all throughout the week, but for whatever reason when we get to the games, it's just not translating. Injury-wise, we have to see who is in. Regardless of who is in there, it has to be executed. We need to do things to not put ourselves in a bind. When we don't hurt ourselves, we're a pretty good team and we usually have control of our games. When we create problems and light fires on ourselves, we lose."
Eagles LB Connor Barwin
On the team's performance today:
"I don't want to take away from [the Dolphins]. They have good players and made some plays at the right time. We didn't do what we're capable of doing and what we should do. We didn't execute and that's not how we've played in the last month. The first quarter was good and we had control of the game. Mistakes started to creep in and we had some uncharacteristic plays. This is the NFL. If you make mistakes like that, teams are going to take advantage of it. Before we knew it, the game was over.
There were mistakes made all over the place. We're usually pretty good at keeping the momentum and finishing. We'll go back and look at the tape to see what happened, but we didn't play our best for four quarters. [Eagles defensive coordinator] Billy [Davis] called the game the way he usually does. He does a great job. They had trouble with a few of the blitzes that we ran. We had plenty of opportunities to make plays throughout the game. Obviously, we didn't finish. We're 4-5 and it is what it is. We're not out of this thing. We have seven games left which is a lot of football, but if we play like we played today we're not going to win games."
On his deflected pass that turned into a Dolphins touchdown:
"That's kind of how the game went. It was in the air for four seconds; it has to be a pick. There were a couple of plays there that rolled their way, but that's how the game goes sometimes."
Eagles LB Brandon Graham
On the team's loss:
"They beat us because they made plays when they needed to. We know that we didn't put ourselves in the best position possible to win this game."
Eagles S Walter Thurmond
On the team's loss:
"It always comes back to us. We had a lot of missed opportunities. Their record might not show it, but the Dolphins are a good team. They have a lot of weapons on the offensive side of the ball, but I think we beat ourselves today. A team hasn't really come out and beaten us down for four quarters. It's always been in our control. Whether it's been a certain technique, a false start, an interception, a deep ball, a blocked punt, it's always something that we can control. It's one of those things where we just need to snap out of it, get back to work and make the necessary adjustments."
On the Eagles defense:
"It's one thing if you get three-and-outs. That's pretty good and it's kind of what the standard is for the league, but we hold ourselves to a high standard. We want to be great and get the ball back. We have to get turnovers and we have to be able to put points on the board as well. We want to be an elite defense. We fell short of that and weren't able to get turnovers after the first quarter. Even though we had some sacks, we weren't able to force the turnovers. It's one of those things where we could've done more on our end, especially on the tipped ball for a touchdown. Those things are a part of the game."
Eagles K Caleb Sturgis
On his missed 37-yard field goal:
"On the one that I missed right, I pushed the ball a little bit right. I have to do better. The wind was blowing left to right, and I have to start it further down the middle. I just started it too far right and it missed. It's something that I have to get better at."
On whether he wishes he could have the missed kick back:
"As a kicker, you have to forget fast. Obviously, right now, I wish I could have it back. By tomorrow, I have to forget it and move on."
On kickers having to have a short memory after a missed kick:
"It's important because you can't make a bad thing worse."
