Injury Report: "(S) Quintin Demps has a hamstring strain. It will be a struggle for him to make it this week. (QB) Donovan (McNabb) has a fractured rib, again, he's going to try to battle through that this week but, we will see how things go as the week goes on. He's pretty sore today and I think he'll struggle to practice the majority of the week there, but we'll see how he does. (T/G) Shawn Andrews still has a sore back. (G/T) Todd Herremans is getting better with the stress reaction to the surgery. (LB) Joe Mays is actually making quite a little progress here with the shoulder sprain."
Opening Remarks: "With Donovan, come Wednesday (QB) Kevin Kolb will work in there as the quarterback with the starting group. We haven't done anything with the second position. Obviously, (QB) Michael Vick still is not eligible to play this week. I haven't made any decisions on whether to take him off the exempt list or not. (General Manager) Tom (Heckert) and I are still meeting on some personnel things right now. I have not done anything with another offensive lineman; (I'm) not sure what direction I'll go there, just going to see how Shawn does here for right now. I thought we had tremendous fan support down there, I know I mentioned this last night. I know when we came to the hotel and came out of the hotel there were as many people as I've seen anywhere on the road and they were noticeable during the game.
"I thought overall our coaches had a pretty good plan offensively, defensively, and special teams. I thought the defense really played fast which, for a first game, they were very well coordinated through (defensive coordinator) Sean (McDermott) and (there were) very few errors assignment-wise. I think therefore, they were really able to cut it loose and play a very fast game. I thought our secondary played well but I think (CB) Sheldon (Brown) stood out with the two interceptions. Again, I pick Sheldon out, we did have five interceptions and seven takeaways but, I thought those were two very nice plays. And then, I thought the defensive line, and it always starts up front there, especially when you're playing a combination team like Carolina where they can both throw the ball and run the football as well as they have.
"I thought our defensive line stepped up and played very solid football. (DE) Trent Cole, we moved him around a little bit and to different spots, I thought he had a very good game. The one thing we need to go back and work on is we had too many missed tackles early and then late. So, I thought we tackled well in the second and third quarters, and the first and the fourth I thought we missed some tackles that we should've been able to make. I thought it showed a lot of pride with our defensive players at the end of the game being able to hold Carolina out of the end zone. Offensively, I thought Donovan did a nice job of commanding the offense and made some nice throws. We had too many drops early in that game and the numbers were a little bit low and also we gave up some field position there. But, as the game went on we settled down and caught the ball better and I thought we were a little sharper on our routes and so on.
"Overall, I mentioned that I was curious to see how the offensive line came together; I thought they did a good job in this game against a pretty solid defensive line. I thought (T) Winston Justice stepped in and did a nice job, but I could go along and pick out each guy, each guy did some good things. Do we have room to improve? Absolutely, we have plenty of room to improve and get better and we'll do that the more they play together. It was good to get Brian Westbrook in the game and get him some game snaps as opposed to practice snaps. I think he'd be the first to tell you that he took a few hits there. But, I thought overall he did a heck of a job. He looked fast on tape and he was decisive with his cuts. We did a little bit of pulling on some of those outside plays with the offensive line; I thought he set those guys up very nice and broke off of them with some urgency and quickness there. And then the last thing was I thought the redzone, we worked on the redzone, we wanted to improve in that area, I thought we did a better job there. We can do better on the plus-side of the 50-yard line. When we have the ball, we need to continue to not make mistakes. We had too many procedure penalties, way too many up front and we can do a better job there. When you're looking at first and 15, those aren't good situations. Or, if you gain five and you kick yourself back another five and your back to second and ten, those aren't good situations. You don't want to give good football teams in return anything there. We can do a better job.
"Special teams, I guess the highlight there would be (WR) DeSean's (Jackson) return. I thought he played fast not only through the game but also, he showed a little bit of explosiveness and speed on that particular play there. The blocking was good. Like I was asked yesterday, Quintin Demps on the block on the side, we had a close one there too, but they do allow you to get as close to that back as possible but still keeping it on the side of the body. Both of those ended up being legal blocks and I'd rather not have them quite that close, we'll keep working on that. We had some ups and downs in the coverage units, it's important we work on maintaining leverage. I thought we lost leverage on a couple of the kickoffs. We've got to do a better job on the blocking up front on the field goals, even the extra point we had some penetration there with (Panther's DE) Julius Peppers and he ended getting one on us. We've got to tighten that up and do a better job there. We'll continue to work on fundamentals and technique as we go and the more these guys play together out there I think the better we'll get on that."
On whether he has spoken with McNabb today and how he says he's feeling: "I have not talked to him. He's been down in the training room getting work. I talked to him last night for quite a little bit and so I had a chance to sit with him on the flight back. He is sore. He's going to try to do everything he possibly can to play this week. We'll just see how that goes. But he's staying optimistic. I thought he did a great job with leading our football team yesterday. Even when he was banged up, he was still encouraging the guys."
On whether he is hesitant to play McNabb next week for fear of worsening the injury: "That's one thing I've talked with the docs about. You don't want to make it worse. I'm not sure it's the type of situation where you can do that. As I've said, it's broken. I don't think you'd make that part worse; we've just got to see how he can function. I'm not going to put him out there if he can't function."
On whether McNabb could not practice all week and still play Sunday: "We've seen him do that before and play some pretty good games. We'll take it day-by-day and see how he does. We want to get him back healthy, that's number one. We'll just see how it goes this week."
On his dealings with this injury to QBs in the past and how he dealt with those cases: "It was later in the year. They're all different. I'm saying the rib injuries are all different; we've got a couple of ribs in there, so depending on the location. This one is displaced a little bit and pretty painful. I know other guys have played with broken ribs and they're all different. It's hard to compare."
On whether his rib injury is in the right part of his back: "Yeah."
On whether there is any risk of him puncturing a lung: "Not right now. No, there is not."
On QB Kevin Kolb's lack of productivity in the past and how he think Kolb will do if he starts Sunday: "I always keep in mind that he is a young guy. A lot of you guys were here when Donovan started off as a young quarterback. You're going to have a few of those things happen, so I think with practice and the opportunity to practice, I have full confidence in him, that he'll do a better job at securing the football. I don't worry about his accuracy or knowledge of the offense right now. It's just a matter of getting caught up with the game speed of the regular season."
On whether he is looking to bring in another QB: "I haven't done anything there right now."
On whether there is a timetable for bringing in a third QB: "Those are all the things that—we went through the film this morning and then we're going through all those things now. We won't practice here until Wednesday, so we have a little bit of time to evaluate it and see how he's doing."
On his view of the hit that injured McNabb: "I can't say anything on that. I'm not going to sit here and disclose to you. You get those big guys with 300-plus pounds motoring at someone and sometimes it's a little hard to stop. Sometimes they come in a little bit late but, I'll take it from there. I just can't disclose all that stuff."
On whether he is looking for someone to start instead of Kolb:"If Donovan can't go, Kevin is the quarterback."
On how important it is for him to get a chance to see Kolb play: "I think players included, we're all confident, coaches and players, that given the opportunity he could do a nice job."
On bringing back QB A.J. Feeley: "He would be somebody we'd obviously look at. We have a lot of respect for A.J., but I know other people in this league do too. So, you don't know the other injuries and so on around the league."
On whether the fact that they are only going to keep a third QB for a short period of time is an issue: "That'd be up to the player if it came down to that. He would have to make that decision, (it's) between the player and the agent there."
On whether he has made any decisions about taking Vick off the exempt list: "I have not."
On how he thought the linebackers played: "I thought the linebackers played good solid football. I thought (LB Chris) Gocong played very well. It was great to see (LB) Omar (Gaither) in there. The guy ended up playing the whole game and I thought he did a heck of a job leading the defense. I thought he was very accurate. He's the one that makes all the calls so when I say they were accurate with their assignments, that starts with Omar and him controlling that defense. I thought he did a nice job. I thought (LB) Akeem (Jordan) played physical football."
On how much better of a player Jordan is this year than last: "I think he's taken a step up. He's more comfortable. Are there things that he can work on? Yeah, he's still a young guy and there are plenty of things he can work on. He had a couple of tackles in there you'd like to have back. When I mention the tackling, the one thing those guys are doing is they're playing 100 miles per hour. So, they maintain that and then we straighten a couple of little techniques out, they'll be OK."
On how many one-on-one snaps Justice and Peppers had against each other: "I don't know exactly. They were enough, they basically bounced him both sides and then moved him inside in their three down position where he was the joker in nickel situations. And then, everybody had an opportunity to block him on that."
On the Saints: "I just started on the Saints here. They're obviously very explosive on offense. You saw that yesterday in what they did with against Detroit. You've seen (QB) Drew (Brees) over the years now, he's one of the top quarterbacks in the National Football League. Looks like he just picked up where he's left off the last couple of years. Defensively, they've retooled that defense a little bit. I think their defensive line is very explosive. I think their secondary with their two corners, who are new guys that are playing very well. And then they've got (S Darren) Sharper in the back end there, who I've been with before and he's a good leader, sharp guy. He's been around the league along time and brings some experience to the bunch."
On whether they would play McNabb if he were hurt at all: "I'm listening to the doctors and (head trainer) Rick (Burkholder) and Donovan. I'm not going to put him out there in a position where he can be injured any further or can't get out of the way or function the way he needs to function to play at this level. We'll just see on that. I know Donovan's mentality. I've always said he's wired like a linebacker, he's a very tough guy. Sometimes you've got to pull back. He always wants to play and you've got to be smart with him."
On how the injury is affecting McNabb's spirits, judging from the conversation he had with him last night: "We don't talk about those kinds of things. He's upbeat about things and just one of those things where 'I'll just do everything I can to get back.' We talked about the game and what went on during the game."
On whether Justice played well: "I thought he did. I thought he played very physical. He had to make a couple of adjustments on a handful of plays and I thought he did that well. I say physical, both in the pass game and in the run game. I thought he did a nice job with the exception of one play with his down the field blocks, he threw a little early on one but he still got the defenders hands down and gave the back an opportunity to get by him. Just a little bit early on the throw. Other than that I thought he played a good solid game."
On whether Justice is more confident than he's been in the past: "I mentioned this before: he was a young kid when we got him. I think he's just matured both on the field and off the field. He's developed into a good solid player."
On what he thinks it says about Justice that he is able to come back from his performance two years ago against the Giants: "The reality of that was he had four out of the twelve sacks. There were some other people that were goofing. I mentioned to you that I put him in a bad situation—we're on the road, he's going against and All-Pro player—I should've given him help out there. I sent him out there on an island by himself, he was playing left tackle and the tight end was on the right side the majority of the game. That was a short corner and I shouldn't have put him in that situation. We use a silent count up there and he wasn't familiar with that, having not been in there with the ones as much as obviously the starters had. He was a young guy with not a lot of experience. I think he's just gotten better with time here. And, the one thing he hasn't done, he never hung his head about that, he manned up to it and said that was his fault and 'I'll do better' and he's gone out and approached it that way and done everything he can to get better."
On the amount of help Justice got in yesterday's game: "He got a little but, we mixed it up a little bit there. We banged those defensive ends around on both sides a little bit but the majority of the time they did it by themselves."
On whether he would like it if when Shawn Andrews is ready to come back it is difficult to decide whether he or Justice should start: "I'm not thinking about that right now. Right now Shawn is struggling to make it out to practice and he can't make it through practice but, I haven't put those things in the computer here."
On how Westbrook played and whether he is looking 100 percent:"He only played about half of the game. But, those were quality snaps and I thought he did a nice job with change of direction, quickness, all of the things you look for coming back off a leg injury. Is he 100 percent back? I don't know if he's 100 percent back, but where he's at is pretty good."
