On what he expects from QB Donovan McNabb: "I expect for him to bounce completely back and go out and have a very good game. He is a talented quarterback; everybody knows that. I wouldn't expect anything less from him than going out and having a good game."
On having banged up running backs and a struggling quarterback:"We have been in better positions than we are now, but we are still going to go out there and do what we can. Like I said, Don is going to go out and have a great game. Hopefully, I will go out and have a good game, as well, and be able to provide this offense some energy and some playmaking ability."
On whether he expects to play: "Yes."
On how he feels: "It's getting better."
On how frustrating it is for him not to be able to do what he normally can: "It's very frustrating. It's part of playing with injuries and part of trying to adjust your body to do something different than what you're normally able to do. It's definitely frustrating. At the same time, you want to go out there and try to help your team as much as possible."
On whether he is doing more harm than good by playing: "Hopefully not, no."
On whether there is a point where he isn't helping the team anymore when he plays hurt: "I guess there is a point, yes. I think [head] coach [Andy Reid] started out last week by putting [RB Correll Buckhalter] in there a little bit. He had a couple of good runs. Unfortunately, Buck hurt his knee. So, I don't think we're at the point where he would take me completely out, especially with our injury situation. I still think I can help out this team, whether it's picking up the blitz or running and catching the ball. That's what I'm trying to do."
On whether he thinks he would be inactive if Buckhalter was able to play:"I don't think so. I think that Buck definitely would get more carries. He would definitely carry the ball more, play some more, but I don't think I would be inactive."
On what RB Lorenzo Booker has shown in practice and training camp:"What we have seen from him at training camp is making plays, making people miss. He's very quick. He hasn't really been in there enough to pick up the blitzes and different things like that. Those are the things that, during this week, he has to cram in that time and get his plays, watch his film and things like that, to try to understand the blitzes a lot better. He's a dynamic player; he's a player who can make a difference. He just needs more time out there on the field."
On what the most difficult part is to play on short rest:"You cram and try to get the whole gameplan in on a short amount of time, as well as trying to get your body back. You're asking yourself to go out there and play on three or four days rest. That's tough to do in the NFL."
On whether there was a message sent to the locker room when a couple players were benched in the last game:"I don't know if that was the purpose of the coaches doing that. I think it really puts everybody on notice that he wants the best from everybody. We want you guys to go out there and perform, do everything that we ask you to do, do the things you've done in practice. Everybody really took heed to that."
On what he is trying to do to make sure that other players aren't focused too much on the quarterback situation: "I think everybody understands the situation. Everybody has lived through it at this point, with the situation from last week. Now, guys are just ready to play football. We all know that Donovan is going to be starting this week, we all know the things he is capable of doing as a player. We expect him to go out and have a great game."
On whether opposing defenses are sitting on pass plays:"Actually, these last couple of weeks, even with Baltimore, they still started with eight men in the box. Arizona plays a lot with eight men in the box. Teams are still forcing us to make those throws and making sure that we have to complete those throws before they get that safety out of there. For our receivers and our quarterback, we definitely have to step up. The tight ends have to be able to catch the ball outside before that safety gets out of the box for him."
On why he thinks his receiving numbers are down this year: "The screen game isn't where it was. Right now, a lot of teams are playing screens. They are doing a lot of different things to try to stop the screen. I definitely am not out in passing formations as much as I was in the past. Those couple things right there really point to why I haven't been catching many balls."
On whether missing G Shawn Andrews has anything to do with the lack of an effective screen game:"No question, Shawn has helped the screen go, but I think the defenses are paying a lot more attention to our screen game right now than they did in previous years."
On whether it is discouraging to have the coaches go away from running the ball later in games:"I wouldn't say it is discouraging. It's a situation where the coach is trying to see something, if he sees something different on the sideline than in the game. I honestly believe that if we were a little bit more patient with the running game, then we'd be more effective. But, I don't call the plays, I just run the plays that are called."
On how important the first couple of series are:"Very important. I wouldn't say they are important because coach is going to pull Donovan out of the game, or anything like that. I think it's important for our offense and for our team to get that confidence back; for us to be able to throw the ball, catch the ball and run the ball against a pretty good defense. We have to be able to do those things. If we don't do that early, it's going to be hard to do it later on in the game."
On what he expects from the fans on Thursday:"Hopefully they will come out and support our team. That's what they've done in the past. I wouldn't expect anything less from Eagles fans."
On why the offense hasn't been able to get on a roll:"We are not playing very well. We aren't executing, we aren't catching the ball, we aren't running the ball, we aren't throwing the ball very well. The defense actually held us in the game for a long time in this past game. Our offense didn't do anything. When your defense is playing pretty well at the beginning of the game but you are leaving them on the field all throughout the whole first half and into the third and fourth quarter, at some point they get tired. Offensively, we're not helping them out at all. Special teams got us a touchdown, but offensively we aren't getting the job done. We aren't holding up our end of the bargain. For us, we have to do a better job."
On whether it is possible to fix everything: "Hopefully so."
