Injury Report: "There are no injuries really to talk about today. The guys I mentioned yesterday, if they need to practice, they can practice."
Opening Remarks: "Disappointing game. I said this before, there are good things that you can find in every game and things that you need to work on in every game, and that's how I feel about this one. I look forward to the game that we put the offense, defense and special teams together. We will have tremendous success when we do that and be very tough to beat. We need consistency as a team, and obviously, that starts at the top and works its way throughout the rest of the football team. I have to do a better job, and I expect everyone around me to also do a better job. We will continue work on gameplans and scripts and so on, and then, also put a little more concentration into practice, into meetings, film study, opportunities to study when you are not in this building at home. I thought the physical effort itself was good. Again, the execution needs to be better. As well as our defense played, there are things that we can do better there. As poor as our offense played, there are things that we can do there, obviously. Turnovers, huge factor whether you are at home or on the road. It's even worse, however, when you are on the road, but if you have four turnovers it doesn't really matter whether you are at home or somewhere else. You have to take care of the football and the easy person to point to is (QB) Donovan (McNabb). I'm not saying that he isn't responsible in those, but there are other people that also have a piece of that and we need to get that straightened out. Third-down conversion percentage was just terrible. Some of those were short yardage. We were 1/4 on the third-and-1's and we have to do a better job there. Tipped balls were an issue in this game. We had four tipped balls. If you have one, it should never happen again. One is too many. We have to make sure that we pitch and we catch. The quarterback has to make sure he's pitching accurately, and the receivers who are given the opportunity to catch the football, need to catch the football. Paul Domowitch asked me a question yesterday, and I think that I misunderstood what he said. He asked me about the fourth-and-1 and I presumed he was talking about the one in the fourth quarter where we kicked the field goal, why we didn't go for it. But I understand now that he was talking about the one in overtime, which I would state now that I absolutely feel that that was the correct thing to do in punting the football with a 1:20-plus left on your -22 yard line. It's pretty safe to say that that's the correct decision, is punt the football."
On why there was such a disparity between passing the ball and running the ball yesterday: "One of their weaknesses, we felt, was against the pass. To answer, that's a two-fold question there, so obviously the pass game had to be a factor here. We want it to be a factor. And then, I will say that we weren't quite as successful in the first half running the football as we needed to be. Could we have dialed more up? Absolutely. We have to start off faster both in the pass and the run game in the first half no matter what phase of the ball you are picking there, you can criticize. The second half, we made some adjustments on some things and maybe we'll come out and get the run game going a little bit."
On whether he felt RB Brian Westbrook carried the ball enough: "As long as we are doing a good job of that, I think we can add some there. I will always say this, you do what you need to do to win the game. You probably could add a couple more runs in there if the passes aren't working."
On which players, other than McNabb, had a part in the turnovers yesterday: "Listen, I kind of took the back door on that one in saying that I know that Donovan has had the finger pointed at him. I have a great public relations director that keeps me abreast of what you guys talk about, so I kind of know where the finger has been pointed. So it's important to know that other people also had a part in that. Again, I take part in that, and I know some of the players take responsibility for that, but I'm not going to sit here and point people out."
On whether he is surprised that some of the players didn't know the rules of overtime: "I'll tell you that I'm sure there are plenty of rules that guys don't understand, but I don't think that has any factor whatsoever to do with the outcome of this game and how they played in the overtime. I think that's absurd. We obviously, you play to win in that time whether you think you have another overtime period or you don't. And you play your heart out to win it in that time, and that's how we approached it and that's how the players approached it."
On whether he was thinking that he had to win the game on fourth-and-1 in overtime: "We always try to win the game. I think we have to come out of every game with a win."
On whether he thinks the players not knowing the overtime rule could have affected the outcome of the game: "That rule, not knowing that rule, I don't think has any affect on what we did there. He threw a beautiful 'Hail Mary.' I don't think that had any affect on the game."
On whether he knew that McNabb didn't know the rule: "No, I didn't know that."
On whose responsibility it is for McNabb to know the rule:"I'll take the responsibility for that."
On whether there is any situation where he would give QB Kevin Kolb a look: "No. That's not what I'm doing right now. Donovan will continue to be the quarterback. Donovan, for every throw that he didn't make there, he'll get himself back. I know that he has already talked to you guys after the game and put the blame on his back, which quarterbacks do. He'll continue to fire and get whatever is wrong straightened out and get it right."
On how McNabb has had slow starts in the past few games and how he might go about getting him into rhythm earlier in the game:"Obviously, we've gone back and evaluated it. I've sat up here before, so anything I tell you, until I get it done, isn't really going to matter, and I'm surely not going to sit here and tell you when we have another opponent to play. But we will evaluate it, and we will try to get this thing right and focus in a little bit more, coach a little better, and execute a little better."
On whether it would have been more beneficial for the Eagles to have gone for it on fourth-and-1 in overtime since a tie is just as bad as a loss: "I don't see it like that. I see there is a half a game right there. Plus that's ridiculous. You're giving them an opportunity at the minus 22 (yard line), that doesn't make sense. I don't think that should make sense to anybody."
On what his thought process was in regards to the fourth-and-1 opportunity they had in the fourth quarter: "I thought we just needed to score there and get the field goal done and knew we'd have another chance to get the football back and score again and win the game, whether it was a field goal or a touchdown."
On what is preventing RB Correll Buckhalter from getting extended playing time:"You end up trying to get Brian going is what you are trying to do. With running backs you try and get it right, and with that we left him in and tried to get it going."
On whether passing three times on third-and-1 opportunities is sending a message to the running backs that he isn't confident in the run game: "You asked me the same question last week about the run game, and so I surely didn't expect two tips and a drop. I didn't expect that. I expect to convert, and I wasn't trying to really send a message to anybody. I was trying to get the first down. I expect those balls to be completed and caught and move on."
On who was calling those plays: "I can't get into that. That's here nor there. Those are the plays we called and that was it."
On where this period in his career ranks in frustration over the years: "We're going to get it straight is what we are going to do. I'm not comparing it to anything else. Every year is different, and we are going to get it right. And I told you before, we are going to work a little harder, up the concentration level, and make sure we do the right thing. I've seen our offense play well, I've seen our defense play well, and I've seen our special teams play well, and I just want to see them do it all together in one game. And when we do, we've got one heck of a football team."
On what kind of finish this team needs to make the playoffs: "I don't know that, but we are going to try to win every game."
On what he has to do to get McNabb back on track and whether that can be done: "Yeah, well we've seen that. We've seen that this year, and hey, he's had a couple of slow starts here and that's aright. We'll get through it. We'll work through it. He'll continue to push. He's a competitive guy. We have to make sure that we are putting him and the receivers, running backs, tight ends, that we're putting them in the right spot in the pass game and that everybody executes and everybody has had a little piece of it, and we can all do a better job."
