Skip to main content
Philadelphia Eagles
Advertising

Philadelphia Eagles News

Head Coach Andy Reid

Injury Report: "(LS) Jon Dorenbos actually made it through the game and did very well with a high-ankle sprain. He feels pretty good today and should be ready to practice this week. My hat (goes) off to the kid for doing a great job in this game and making the first tackle on that first punt there. (DT) Derek Landri has some knee inflammation and should be ready to go on Wednesday. (RB) LeSean McCoy just had a little tweak of his knee and it's swelling up. He's okay. (LB) Akeem Jordan with the hamstring strain. He is making progress. He'll struggle to practice on Wednesday. (QB) Michael Vick mentioned that he had hurt his knee and he just has a knee contusion, so he's fine. He was up and moving today and doing good."

Opening Remarks: "Just to start this out, I just want to wish our prayers to (Indianapolis Colts Head Coach) Chuck Pagano and the fight that he has ahead of him. If anybody will attack it the way that I know the doctors would want, it's Chuck. He's a tough nut, and he's got a great mindset not only for life but for the game. Our thoughts and prayers here with the Eagles go out to him. We know he's going to be okay in the long haul here, which is the most important thing.

"As far as our football team goes, it was good to bounce back after a tough loss. You're never quite sure because we hadn't been through that with this group here so you're never quite sure until you go through it. You think you know, but until you do it, you don't know. The guys worked hard during the week and had a good attitude. They came out and played well. In the first half, I kind of thought we kind of traded punches with one another defensively. I thought both offenses were kind of struggling in that first half. When things got going, it was really the first drive for both offenses in the second half.  The perseverance that we had through all three phases of the game I thought was important. We have a ton of work ahead of us coming out of another win here where we have plenty of things to work on during the week, and we'll do that. We'll attack those. I honestly don't feel like we've come close to playing our best football yet. I don't think our players do or coaches.

"One of the positives was that I thought we found a rhythm offensively. We were able to get ourselves in rhythm that second half. We had a mix of run and pass, play pass. We attempted screens but they weren't as successful as we wanted but we at least got ourselves in a rhythm. We had no turnovers, which we won that battle for the first time this year. That's important, at this level obviously. I thought it was good to get Michael going here. Mike takes a lot of responsibility upon himself, but it's a joint effort and we all have a piece of that from playcallers to the players around them. I thought everybody picked up their game. The o-line, I thought, did a nice job of adjusting.

"(Offensive line coach) Howard (Mudd) and (offensive coordinator) Marty (Mornhinweg) did a nice job of making adjustments coming out that second half. We had a number of runs that we have in our game plan sheet, and the early ones, for one reason or another, weren't working. They made the necessary adjustments to get different runs in or change the blocking assignments to get the other ones."

"Defensively, I thought (defensive coordinator) Juan (Castillo) had a good game plan, as did (offensive coordinator) Marty (Mornhinweg) on the offensive side. Juan had a good game plan for the Giants and I would tell you if they weren't the hottest offensive team in the league, they surely were one of them. Their quarterback, who I have the utmost respect for, was playing out of his mind and made some unbelievable plays in this game. But coming into this game, (he) was just on fire. Again, this starts up front.

"Our d-line played well, but (DT) Cullen (Jenkins) and (DT) Fletcher (Cox), I thought, did a nice job. When they're chipping your outside defenders, your defensive ends, then you've got to make sure that you take care of business with the inside players and so I thought they were able to give good inside pressure on the quarterback. Then, in the secondary, I thought we challenged them. So, it wasn't all perfect, but we came out and we challenged and made (Giants QB) Eli (Manning) throw into small windows and that's a tough thing to do on a consistent basis.

"Special teams-wise, we've got some work to do on the kickoff coverage and kickoff return units. There's no reason we should be playing like we are in those spots. Had an opportunity to go through that with (special teams coordinator) Bobby (April) this morning and we've just got to straighten a few things up there. So, we'll go about working on that this week. Time's yours."

On whether the actual kickoffs need to become better in order for the kick coverage to improve: "Well, a couple of the kickoffs were a bit short. Hang time is important, but we had guys in position around that 25-yard line at the catch. So, you've got to make sure that you work the right techniques; have the right scheme, right techniques. We should be okay and the kicker's got to do his job too. But I wouldn't say that that was the number one thing, no."

On how CB Nnamdi Asomugha is today following his eye injury on Sunday: "Yeah, Nnamdi's okay. He finished the game okay and he's okay today. We were lucky we had a specialist right there, so we were able to take care of that. They gave him drops to put in there last night afterwards and he'll be reevaluated against tomorrow. It takes about 24 hours for the drops."

On the status of S Colt Anderson: "Colt will be ready to go here. If I didn't mention them today, they'll be ready to practice."

On whether there is a link between being 3-1 with three fourth quarter wins and last year's 1-3 start: "Listen, I've kind of stated this from the end of last season that I thought one of the positives that this team had going for them was they can maintain that attitude that they finished the season with. We were lucky enough where we were able to maintain most of that football team, personnel-wise, and then add a few young guys in there. They were able to do that. That carried them over through the OTAs and brought them through training camp, pretty tough training camp, and it's helped them, I think, through the early part of this season. Every week's a challenge in this league. These guys, they've got a good attitude, though. They're tough. There's a toughness about them; a certain mentality about them that you appreciate."

On whether the run-pass differential is Sunday's game was a result of realizing there needs to be balance on offense or simply a game plan for the Giants: "Well, you guys are good about asking me that every week. I'll tell you that you like to have a balance. Does that necessarily mean it's a 50-50 balance? No, that's not what it necessarily means. Number one, you want to do what it takes to win and then two, you want to make sure that you get your group in rhythm and that you keep the defense out of rhythm. So, the best way to do that is to utilize all your different groupings on offense and give the defense different looks and at the same time, be able to give your offensive line and your quarterback an opportunity and running back an opportunity to get themselves going."

On how difficult it is to continue running the ball when there are few positive results: "Well, you've got a variety of things to choose from. As long as the score is relatively close and, this is in general, you're not down by two, three touchdowns, then normally you can maintain your rhythm and your game plan. You might have to make a few adjustments, which halftime is a good time to do that. That's what I'd tell you. So in this type of game, sticking with the run, you can (do that)."

On the status of T King Dunlap: "He'll practice. He's getting better, so we'll just see how he is."

On whether Dunlap will start at left tackle when he is healthy: "I want to see him out there; see what he can do first."

On the performance of LB Jamar Chaney on Sunday: "Jamar did a decent job, yeah. He did a pretty good job there."

On the decision to go to RB Bryce Brown on second-and-goal in the fourth quarter: "Well, we've been working him in and probably one of things I probably should have done in hindsight is, when we were down on the one there on the first drive of the second half, I probably should have gotten him in there. Fresh legs there. Same type of thought at that point."

On whether the sack QB Michael Vick took on the Eagles final drive was a "clock-killing" play: "Not necessarily a clock-killing (play). It gave us three options. It gave us two receivers on that side that we could work and then it also added Mike into the equation as a runner. If the play wasn't there, as opposed to forcing something and if Mike couldn't score by running, just go ahead and get down. Try to do it inbounds. Get down; the clock would continue to run. We line up. There was plenty of time on the clock. It wasn't like he was going to run the clock all the way down or run the clock out. So, you get down and we could go ahead and kick the field goal."

On whether the aforementioned play was recently added to the playbook: "That play right there, we probably run more than any play we have in our offense, actually, to be honest with you. That type of a play. Now, we do it a bunch of different ways."

On whether there is always an option for Vick to get down on that type of play: "In that situation. That's just a situational thing. That's a situational down."

On the progression he has seen in C Dallas Reynolds and T Demetress Bell since their first action against the Ravens: "Well, they're making progress. Demetress, I thought he played a pretty good game. There were a couple there where he was expecting a chip and the chip didn't show up, so he got edged a little bit. But I thought for the most part, he did a nice job, and Dallas continued to get better through the game. So, I thought his size and strength kind of showed up when we were running the football there. He had a few nice blocks there."

On the problems with the screen game this season: "Well, listen, if teams play it, it serves its purpose because you're not going to get the same rush that you'd normally get. I think teams are aware that we're a pretty good screen team, so there are times where they pull off. You saw (Giants DE) Osi (Umenyiora) on the one; he was very aware of the screen that we ran. We didn't run a lot of them, but that one, in particular, he was very aware of."

On whether the team can secure victories consistently when they are only beating opponents by one or two points per game: "Well I imagine it is sustainable. I'd like to keep winning. I'd like to keep winning by more than one or two points. I'd like that but I like winning."

On when Vick injured his knee: "It was when he slid (on the play discussed before)."

On whether Vick will participate in practice on Wednesday: "Yeah, he'll practice. It was on that play we were talking about."

On whether the play calling was too conservative as a result of trying not to turn the ball over: "No. Really I wasn't worried about the turnovers. That's not where we were going. We tried to run the plays we thought were best to try to score."

On whether CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie should have kneeled down after intercepting a pass from Eli Manning: "Well there's a time and a place for everything so he'll have a chance to look at it on tape and see the situation."

On his evaluation of Asomugha and whether there are things he needs to work on: "Well listen, we all have things we have to work on. He's no exception and he has that mentality to do that. I was proud that he came back in and fought like crazy to get back out there and to play. He challenged, that's what he did. When some of you have a chance to look at the tape you'll see that when you have help over the top and you're in a trail position, sometimes it looks like you might be getting beat down the field. There's reasons as you look at it that you'll see. I think he's a great player and he understands what we're doing and he's making plays. Like any corner in this league there's going to be one or two you wish you had back. That's all part of it, especially in the type of defense that we run, where you're going to get up and you're challenging every snap."

On Asomugha's comment that he barely had vision in his right eye when returning to play: "We were fortunate enough that we had a specialist right there so he did the test on him for vision and it worked out well. By the time that he went back onto the field he was able to see fine."

On the play of CB Brandon Hughes while filling in for Asomugha: "I thought Brandon got up and challenged too. They had the one catch on him but he had a nice breakup on one of the plays. He got up and challenged. He did a nice job. He had the one in the end zone (where) sometimes guys grab other people's jerseys and pull them down. He had a chance for an interception and he kind of got snagged there a little bit. I thought he came in and played well."

On the fact that DT Cullen Jenkins said he was challenged this week internally by the coaches: "Each guy (is challenged). That's the name of this game. Coaches are challenged, players are challenged. Good teams do that within the team so players challenge players, coaches challenge coaches, coaches challenge players, and so on. That's how it works. For him, I thought he played well against a good interior offensive line. He really played with a lot of grit in there."

On how often the Giants brought pressure from their secondary: "It was a fairly high percentage. Depending on the formation they did it formationally. Normally away from our three receiver side."

On whether the Giants typically bring that much pressure against the Eagles: "They've done a variety of things. You remember a couple of years ago when we played up there they did a lot of the zero blitz on us. Then they came back the next time and played a little bit more zone with a couple zone blitzes. They went back and played man the last time we played them and then they came back and had a nice mix this game."

On the importance for teams to establish that they are able to win close games early in the season: "It's important. This is what you know, there are going to be new wrinkles in there that you need to be able to take care of. Most of the things that have been shown before you're going to handle fairly well. The little new wrinkles on where they bring people or the new routes that might be thrown at the defense and how you adjust to those are important. If you make those adjustments quick enough good things can happen. The players and coaches have to maintain the right frame of mind to do that and they can't get flustered by new things. You've got to be willing to change certain things here and there. I thought both groups did a nice job with that. Both the coaches and the players did a nice job."

On Vick's comments that freezing the kicker is a bad play: "For about one minute there I wasn't a fan of it myself either. That was not a good thing."

On whether he would like the NFL to disallow the ability to attempt to freeze the kicker: "I did for about a minute. Listen, I don't make the rules but there was a period of time there where it would have been a real good thing."

This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an issue.

LATEST VIDEOS

Advertising