Injury Report: (DE) Victor (Abiamiri) and (WR) Kevin Curtis are the only two that will be out this weekend. Everyone else will practice today. (WR) Reggie (Brown) will be the new edition in there in the practice. We'll see how he does. We'll give him a few reps in there and let him play."
Opening Remarks: "We look forward to the opportunity to play the Rams. Again, we understand that we are playing this year, it's not last year's Rams team, where they were decimated by injuries. They have everybody back, and they have a lot of talent on that football team. That's the way our guys are preparing themselves for this game."
On whether he has come to any conclusions as to why he has a 3-6 record on opening day: "We're just preparing as we do every week to do the best we can in the game. We haven't changed anything or taken things out or put things in. There are a variety of reasons why those things happen, but we have to prepare ourselves to play a good Rams team."
On what some of the different obstacles are to getting off to a good start: "I'm not going to get into all that and the different things, other than it is the first game and again, it depends on who you are playing, and so on and so forth. We want to be on the 'three' side of that and not the 'six' side of that record there."
On whether he sees a common threat in the six losses when he looks back: "We didn't play as well as we should have. Each game is a little different situation."
On what he thinks the most improved area of the team is since last year: "I think right now it's too early to tell that. I'm optimistic about this football team. However, it's time to play now, so all the 'if's' and 'what if's' and 'what can be's' and all that, we're putting those aside and we're going to focus in on the Rams. Today is Wednesday. We're going to do the best we can today and the best on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday. We are in a one-game-at-a-time mode right now and one play at a time."
On how he is going to line up the wide receivers: "I'm going to leave (WR) DeSean (Jackson) at Z and just leave it that way."
On who he is going to play at the X: "We'll mix guys in there."
On whether he has emphasized home field advantage to the team: "You want to do well at home. It should be home field advantage. Bottom line is that we just need to play better than the way we did last year, and I anticipate that we'll do that."
On where DE Chris Clemons is at with his pass rush: "Clemons is working in and rotating in there right now just kind of getting into the swing of things. We'll see how he does this week."
On whether he thinks Clemons will be ready to be in the rotation even though he hasn't played much in the last month: "Yeah, the one thing I know is that he's in pretty good shape. The injured players, those guys work hard. Now, it's just a matter of him getting his timing down in the football part."
On how much WR Reggie Brown will be limited in practice this week: "We'll see. We'll just play it day by day here and see how he does."
On whether he is more optimistic this year than he has been in past years: "I've sat here every year and I've probably told you that I'm optimistic, so I don't know how to weigh that. I like the football team. Again, we'll see how things work out. I'm looking forward to the season. We'll just play each game when it comes to us."
On how important it is for the receivers to do well in order to open up the field for RB Brian Westbrook: "I think they open up things for each other. I mean, it's not about guys opening up one thing for one guy. It's each guy doing his job and if you have a variety, good things can happen. We have some good players here that can do a lot of good things."
On how much better this offense is with a healthy QB Donovan McNabb: "I think that's an obvious question with an obvious answer. I think we're better when he's healthy. He feels great right now, so I think he's looking forward to getting this thing started. This can be, after the final preseason game, this can be the longest week of the NFL season because you finish on a Thursday and you have all this time, so guys are chomping at the bit to get to this practice right here. (There's been) a lot of fill-in days there where we worked on some things. Bottom line is now we get to focus 100 percent on the Rams."
On whether he feels he needs to talk with CB Lito Sheppard about Lito's unhappiness with his position on the depth chart: "Lito and I haven't talked. Lito will be fine. He'll go out and play."
On what CB Sheldon Brown has shown him in order to earn a starting spot: "I would never get into that. They are both very good football players."
On whether he is worried that Lito will be a disruption to the team: "No."
On why Lito isn't starting: "He's doing a nice job right now. He'll continue to do that. They'll all play."
On whether WR DeSean Jackson might be the most important rookie that he's seen in his career: "He is going to have an opportunity to play this week, probably a bit more than others did. We'll see. He'll have a great challenge this week because their defense is very active and their corners like to get right up on you and challenge you every play. Even in the zone coverage they are going to be up there challenging you, so this will be good work for him right there."
On what the biggest improvement is that he sees in the Rams from last year to this year: "The number one thing is that they are healthy. They were just beat up last year. They have good coaches, and they have a lot of talent on that football team. You guys prepare yourselves now for a dog-gone good football team and not the 3-13, or whatever they were last year –you get lugged into that thing and you don't want to do that."
On how confident he is that FS Brian Dawkins can still perform at a high level with this being his 13th year in the NFL: "Brian, when he played in the preseason, he did a nice job. He flew around and made plays and hit people, and I really haven't seen a drop-off there."
