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Game Vs. Bills: Head Coach Rex Ryan

The Eagles returned to Lincoln Financial Field to face the Buffalo Bills in their first of three home games in December. View the full gallery here...

Opening remarks:

"All right, this one's tough because I thought we were the better team today, but obviously we got beat. And you know, that is a good football team. Penalties – we've got ourselves to blame. You can't have that many penalties obviously and it's a no-brainer when you jump offsides a zillion times and we got – I  don't know how many holding calls, but it looked like it was a record out there. We fumbled a punt. We played field position, make them go three-and-out again and think we're going to get good field position and we fumble a punt. So we've got ourselves to blame on this one. How it affects us – we're going to be sick, I can tell you that much, if this costs us, which it probably will."       

On why he was upset with the officials walking off the field:

"I'm not upset [at the officials]. Hell, we had all those holding calls or whatever, that's what I'm upset about."

On defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman saying that the officiating was a disgrace as he and Thurman walked off the field:

"I don't know. It was a disgrace that we had way too many penalties. That's on us. There's always things that you're going to have disagreements with, with the officials. There's always going to be that. That's Ed Hochuli and that's about as good of a crew as you're going to get. Did I think it went perfect? Probably not. You always have your vantage point. Our vantage point on the sideline looked like the guy clearly picked our guy, but obviously we weren't there on their sideline where it happened. They bring one guy in and all he does is block. You're always going to have calls that you disagree with. But the officials, that crew in particular is an outstanding crew, and I'm sure they got it right."   

On not being able to get something going on offense:

"Well, we kept shooting ourselves in the foot. We had penalty after penalty. We get a first down. Penalty. Look back. Penalty. Penalty. That was the difference. I thought we were moving the ball up and down the field on them, it's just we'd get a darn penalty. That's the difference. We didn't allow ourselves to get into any kind of rhythm because we're backed up. It's now first-and-20 or third-and-15 or whatever the heck it is and when you're behind the sticks it's tough to do anything."

On whether it was penalties or the Eagles defense that stopped RB LeSean McCoy from running in the second half:

"I don't know, that ain't exactly '85 Bears, but if you want to say it is, then go for it. It must have been them."

On the struggles of the offensive line:

"Yeah no question. That 91 is a good player. I was laughing when I saw him being compared to Jerome Brown, but I'm not laughing now. The kid is a pretty good player." 

On McCoy's day overall and how he handled coming back to Philadelphia:

"I thought he did a great job and he gave us a chance to win. He's a great player. I thought he was professional in the way he handled everything. The guy just wants to win in the worst way regardless of who you play." 

On what happened in the second half that caused the team to get away from giving McCoy the ball:

"Well you start getting behind the sticks and that's what happens. You can't run the ball every snap when it's first-and-20 or whatever, so that puts you in a tough situation, so obviously we probably never got him the ball as much as we wanted to."

On how big of a loss this was in the overall picture of the season:

"No, we don't know anything about the other teams. We don't know what the scenarios are or anything else. We just knew we needed to win this game and we didn't. That's the bottom line."

On how much of the team's penalty problems could be attributed to the presence of Eagles DE Fletcher Cox:

"I don't know, probably a bunch. The kid made some plays."

On what he saw during QB Tyrod Taylor's interception at the end of the game and what he thinks about his play overall:

"I think the kid is playing great. That's real unfortunate. I think he probably misread that coverage. He thought he had [WR] Robert [Woods] getting behind the guy. Never realized that a safety was on top or if it was Cover 1, the safety made a great play on it." 

On whether the Eagles were using a hard count a lot to cause several of the neutral zone infractions:  

"I don't know. Who knows."

On whether this game was really a snapshot of the team's whole season:

"Yeah. I mean just the lack of consistency I think. We had a lot of guys out and I thought some guys stepped in and played well. It's just tough to play against this offense and in particular I thought the defense for the most part rose to the occasion. We obviously have to learn how to play the 8-7 switch, which I thought we did as the game went on. But there were a lot of good things. I think on offense we did a lot of good things, but we just made too many penalties. That's just what it was."

On whether the Eagles' offensive pacing was causing problems with the defense fatigue-wise:

"No. I think our guys did a great job. We rolled some guys in there, but we were in great shape. Our [defensive backs] played the whole game. Now going all those three-and-outs against them probably helped."  

On how the defensive backs held up this week, especially without CB Stephon Gilmore playing:

"Well I think that's a credit to the guys. They worked extremely hard. They studied. That's what's so bad. To put in the kind of effort we did preparation-wise. We did everything right with our preparation and then we come out here and have too many mistakes."

On not allowing K Dan Carpenter to kick a 52-yard field goal in the 1st half:

"Well we hadn't had a whole lot of field position. I felt comfortable. I felt confident in our defense. I thought we'd pin them back and then get a three-and-out and have great field position. It worked out exactly how I wanted it to except we dropped the punt."

On whether he's continuing the practice of having the team do pushups at practice after causing penalties:

"Yeah we have and we don't make them. That's the difference. We haven't been making them on the practice field or for this month, in games. And again you got to give credit. I hope you understand that I want to give the Eagles credit because that team is a good football team and they are well-coached and they play extremely hard. That kid 91 is a player, but I don't care if Reggie White was in there, we can't hold them that much."

On what he's telling his team going into the week:

"We have to fight our ass off. That's all we can do. This team is not going to do whatever. We're going to fight. We're going to fight to the end. There's no question about that. That's a given."

On injuries from the game:

"[TE Charles] Clay with a back. I have no idea. No update on that."

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