Injuries: "[FS] Brian Dawkins will not practice today with his neck stinger. [G] Todd Herremans had the knee surgery. He will not practice today, but he's made a lot of improvement here. [CB] Lito [Sheppard] will not practice today with the MCL sprain. We'll just see how he does, all these guys do, throughout the week. Everybody else will practice. We'll see how far [T] William Thomas can go with his MCL sprain. The rest of the guys will get out and practice."

Opening Remarks: "We look forward to the challenge of playing the Jets. We know they're a good football team. Their record is the same as ours, so we know the struggles they've gone through. It should be a heck of a football game."

On whether RB Brian Westbrook will be limited in practice: "He'll do what he can do.  I'll just keep checking with him and see how he's feeling. He feels pretty good right now."

On whether TE L.J. Smith will be limited in practice: "We'll just see how he does. Again, he feels pretty good."

On whether they treat Dawkins any different with his injury because of the way S Quintin Mikell is performing: "I'm going to answer that separately. Quintin's done a very nice job. That would not matter how well he's doing as opposed to how we treat Brian. We're not going to put any player out there at risk until they're ready to play. That's two separate questions."

On whether Dawkins injury is more serious than they originally thought it was: "When you're dealing with nerves, you don't know. You just don't know how long those are going to take. So, you literally take them day by day. They can take a long time or something could change by tomorrow. You don't know that. We're just kind of playing it by ear and checking. Dawk's very honest with us on how he feels and that's important. We know he wants to be out there. It's killing him not to be out there. We just want to make sure that thing's right."

On what mental and emotional benefits there are in giving the team the week off for the bye: "I think for the players and the coaches, we've been together a while here, and it's always good to get away and take a step back and review whether it's going good or not. You want to make sure that you evaluate everything and buy the coaches a little time, where they don't have practices and meetings, that they can go through their self scouting and make sure that you do a thorough job with that."

On what they noticed through the self scouting process that they will improve on: "I can't tell you that. I can't get into all that. But, the bottom line is we need to coach better and we need to play better."

On whether it would be better to run the ball more: "We're actually running the ball more in the fourth quarter than the league average. Our first half stats are just slightly below the average for the league. So, I think we're doing a good job of running the football enough. We just need [to be] efficient. Efficiency needs to be better when we do throw the football. We need to make sure we put the players in the right position that we catch the football when we have an opportunity to catch the football. We've got way too many drops. You start averaging four drops a game, that's way too many and we need to fix that."

On why he addressed non-football questions during the bye week: "Obviously, I received a lot of phone calls (jokingly). And really, I'm not sure what a blog is, to be very honest with you. So, I don't know where the information came from, but it was false. So, I just wanted to make sure people understood that."

On whether his statement of saying he will finish the season applies to next year: "I don't know where all this came from. I honestly don't. Like I said, I'm not blog efficient. But, it sounds like people can be very creative there. That has nothing to do with me. That's as far as I'm going. I'm here. As long as the Philadelphia Eagles want me here, I'm here."

On why he expanded on his comments this time and didn't let it go like he normally does: "It came up during the season here and I just wanted to make sure that we ended it and the players understood that and you folks understood that. It was pretty cut and dry that that information didn't come from me."

On whether there is anything they do during the bye week that allows them to move forward and gives them the tendency of winning after the bye: "I don't think so. We go through and we analyze it. It's like what you asked me about going into the bye. I'm not sure there's a rhyme or reason for that. I don't think there is necessarily coming out of the bye. I guess you're just fortunate enough to be at one place long enough where you can have a tendency. It happens that those things work the way they've worked."

On whether he has talked to Dawkins about not rushing back onto the field due to his injury: "We just want to make sure he's right. Brian's been around long enough to understand that. The main thing I want is communication between he and [head athletic trainer] Rick [Burkholder] and the doctor's, and that's with any player. Brian's a seasoned veteran and he's able to communicate his problem and that will help get that better even faster. We obviously don't want to put him in a position where he gets hurt."

On whether his injury is nerve damage: "It's a stinger and stingers deal with the nerves. So, is it permanent damage? No, that's not what it is. A stinger is part of the nerve that has a reaction to it. So, that's what's happened to him."

On whether he is comfortable putting T Winston Justice in: "I have no problem with that."

On whether he talked to Justice after the Giants game: "No, I didn't. I told him to keep his head up and to keep firing. He'll be fine. He's a good young football player."

On whether T William Thomas will work with first teams this week: "Yeah, if he can be out there, he'll be out there."

On who will be at left guard: "That'll be Max [Jean-Gilles]. I'm presuming that Herremans is going to play in the game, but if he can't then Max will go in."

On why Herremans had the knee surgery: "His knee was bothering him so we checked it. He had a cartilage tear in there, so they went in and they cleaned it out. He was back up on his feet that day. The main thing is that we keep the swelling down in it and he keeps rehabbing it. But, he feels pretty good right now."

On what positive things he has seen from the Jets film: "One of the real positive [things] is their defense. Obviously, [Jets head coach] Eric [Mangini] has a tremendous defense in mind and they do a lot of different things there. And then their offense, [Jets QB] Chad's [Pennington] there, he's a seasoned vet. [He's] very efficient and he's had a lot of success over the years. They're a good football team. They've just had a few stalls here and there, that happens."

On whether he looks at QB Kellen Clemens more given that Pennington may be on the bubble: "Yeah, you have to look at that. You have to look at him. He's a good football player, too. He was a heck of a college player, we really liked him. [We] saw him a little bit in the preseason. He's a good player."

On whether he's surprised by the number of teams that were in the playoffs last year that are struggling this year: "The NFL is crazy that way. There's a tremendous amount of parity in the National Football League right now. That's what [former NFL commissioner] Paul Tagliabue, he wanted that. I think there are some real positives to it. His vision is there. That gives every city an opportunity to have a winning football team. That strengthens the National Football League. It's great from a coach's standpoint because you get great competition every week, and from a player's standpoint that's what you want. You want to be tested each week."