On the emotions after a game like this: "Well, we're certainly disappointed. The Philadelphia Eagles beat us in all phases of the football game tonight—offensively, defensively, and in the kicking game. It really was about execution more than anything else, I don't think it was about effort. I think we worked hard, guys were fighting hard in all three phases, they just played better than we did. We got to give them credit, we obviously have to just get back to work and try to become a better football team throughout our team."
On conservative play in attempting to stop big plays: "Well we'll look at what we did specifically in the ball game when we look at the game tape, but they did an outstanding job. They ran the ball well, they threw it well. The quarterback is an outstanding football player, the runner is an outstanding football player. Obviously they have weapons outside, I thought they did a good job up front and they moved the ball consistently throughout the ball game lots of different ways and made some big chunk plays running and some big chunk plays throwing it and they were able to just consistently move the ball and sustain drives and then score when they got down and close. I give them a ton of credit, they're a good football team and we weren't up to the task tonight."
On if the Eagles exposed the Cowboys' flaws: "We just have to go back to work. We have to get better in all three phases of our football team and we're going to start that tomorrow when we watch this tape. They did a much better job than we did on offense, on defense, and in the kicking game and we just have to make the corrections and go forward. This game is not coming back. We can learn from this game and move forward on to the next challenge."
On how much they missed LB Sean Lee: "Hard to know, hard to know. It seems like they had success doing a lot of things on offense. Sean Lee has certainly been a very good football player for us, but we feel good about [LB] Bradie James, and [LB] Keith Brooking at linebacker when Sean was not in there."
On problems stopping the run: "They're very good running the football. There's a reason they're the number one rush team in the National Football League. They do a very good job from a scheme standpoint. They have good blockers, they have good runners, and it just was a tough task. We defended the run well throughout the year, tonight we weren't able to do that."
On the Eagles containing their offense: "I think the biggest issue was they put some pressure on the quarterback and we didn't have a whole lot of time to throw. We had some minus plays early on in the game, if you remember on that first drive. And they did a good job pressuring the quarterback. They have very good cover guys on the back end, there's no question about that. And there's the combination of the pressure and the cover guys I think limited our opportunities to throw the football. We never really could get anything going consistently on offense throughout the game."
On the Eagles' speed: "Well they're certainly a fast football team, there's no question about that. They play hard, they play aggressively, they have a number of players on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game, they run, they attack. We've seen that on tape, we've seen that from them for a lot of years. That's their style of play, and you have to be up to the task. You have to force them to match our intensity and our speed. We weren't able to do that in any phase of the game."
On if the Eagles did anything surprising: "Oh I don't think anything surprised us. We had a pretty decent feel for what they were going to do. They just did it well and they did it better than we did. We didn't execute in any phase of the football game and we have to look at what happened and go forward."
On his message to the team after the game: "Just that, just that. I don't think there was any question about our effort tonight about our intensity tonight, I think guys played hard. We just didn't play well. They executed better than we did, again in all three phases, and we have to go back and look at why that happened. They're a good football team, there's no question about that. They're well coached, they have good players. We just didn't do what we needed to do to execute the way we needed to to win a game like this. We have to go back and look at it very specifically, play by play, and see what happened and then learn from it and go forward."
On the effort of his team: "Oh yeah, I don't think there was any question about how hard our team played, we just didn't play well enough. And that's a good football team, when you don't play well against a good football team, things like this happen, happens all over the league and you have to play well you have to execute well in order to stop teams and in order to move the ball on teams and we didn't do that tonight in any phase."
On the preparation this week: "I thought our preparation was good this week."
On the inconsistent identity of the team: "Well we just have to get better in all three phases. I think we played some very good football games, I think we played some good football in each of our first six games. Unfortunately we lost three of those close games against good football teams. Tonight we didn't play nearly as well as we have up to this point. And we have to get better, we have to look at what happened and get better in all phases of our football team."
On if defensive coordinator Rob Ryan's comments about the "All Hype Team" impacted his team: "I think they're a good football team. I think everyone in our organization believes that. They're a talented football team, they're a well-coached team, and we had to get ready for the challenge of the game and they had to get ready for the challenge of the game as well. They did a better job of that than we did."
On if bulletin board information has an effect on the team's preparation: "I think probably different people and different teams handle those things differently. The Eagles are good football team and they played better than we did tonight."
On if his team was overwhelmed at the beginning: "I just think we didn't play well. They did a good job on the first drive, they went right down the field and scored a touchdown. We came back, we moved the ball a little bit on our drive and then we had a minus play, we had a holding penalty and then we had a sack. We couldn't get any rhythm after we didn't move the ball on the first couple snaps that we took in the ball game and they were consistently effective on offense moving the ball and we never really got anything going. 3rd downs certainly were a factor for us. Once the game got a little bit out of hand, it was harder for us to maintain the balance we wanted to maintain and run the football at them."
