Andy Reid – Photo by Pete Lerro – contrastphotography.com

Head Coach Andy Reid Press Conference

10-6-08

Injury Report:

“[S] J.R. Reed has a hamstring strain and also an ankle sprain. We’ll just see how he does here this week. [RB] Brian Westbrook has fractured ribs. We’ll see how it works out for him as we go through the next couple of days. Then, [G] Shawn Andrews still has a little back spasm.”

Opening Remarks:

“Obviously, we’re disappointed with the game against the Redskins. I mentioned yesterday and I’ll mention it again, it starts with the head coach, and I have to make sure that I do a better job of giving our players an opportunity to win and make plays. The obvious is that we need to be more consistent as a football team on both sides of the football.

The effort is there, but any time that you end a game with 47 offensive plays and 75 defensive plays, there’s a problem. You go back and you analyze that. We had way too many three-and-outs on the offensive side, in particular, to start the second half with four consecutive three-and-outs.

Within that, you’ve got be consistent in catching the football and blocking and making sure that I put the guys in the position to do that. Then defensively, when you have the field position, you maintain the field position and when you don’t, you stop them where they are at.

You’ve got to get off the field on third down. If you have third-and-long situations, you have to be very stingy there and not allow the offense to convert those. The change-ups that Washington did, they obviously came out [and] they were going to throw the football against us, and we shut that down well.

Then, they decided to run the football, and we didn’t do a good enough job there of shutting down the run. When you present a team an eight-man front and you run the football in, you should be able to do that.

The change-ups that Washington did for the second half of the game was they played a little bit more man-coverage, which we were prepared for. We just weren’t consistent enough executing against it.

To come out of an offensive game where you have no turnovers and no sacks, you surely should be able to score more than one touchdown. Then the situation in the red zone, we have to get that taken care of.

That is completely a coaching error on my part.

When you are at the one-foot-line the last two weeks, that’s unacceptable and I have to make sure that I get that taken care of.”

 On why it’s so hard to put players into position after ten years of coaching:

“It’s a challenge every week, and that’s what makes it such a great job.”

 On what he would tweak in order to get more consistency out of the players:

“The obvious thing is, I always go back to blocking and tackling on both sides of the ball, and we have to do better there. Then, personally what I go back to is the play calling on the offensive side and defensive side, and then, the blocking and tackling. Then, making sure that you’re not being too fancy, that you’re giving the quarterback and receivers and the other skill players there an opportunity to do what they do best.”

On why there wasn’t a timeout called on the third-and-one foot-line play with a player lined up in the wrong formation:

“It looked like there was a timeout called, but I guess the official didn’t see that part, which I understand. Then, we went up and they reset the clock and we continued to play there. We thought we had a good play going and obviously, it didn’t work.”

On who called the timeout:

“Well, everybody saw the quarterback turned around and called a timeout. A lot of people saw that.”

On whether he is considering making a roster move at the fullback position in light of FB Tony Hunt not being used very often and DT Dan Klecko getting “blown up” at the goal-line:

“Yeah. Let me address the part of him being ‘blown up.’ We were fanning to that guy that he was blocking. He was thinking he was blocking a different man, so I think it kind of caught him by surprise there. And as far as the fullback goes, we’ll just see how things go with that.”

On whether he is satisfied with the level of urgency that the club has played with the past few weeks:

“The effort is there. We have to do a better job in football games. You’re going to have some highs and lows, and you have to do a better job working through some of the lows. That directly comes back to me, making sure that that happens. We just have to do a better job.”

 On why short yardage and run plays in general are a problem with such a big offensive line:

“It shouldn’t be. We’re going to get that worked out.”

On whether he has any idea of why the Eagles have only scored one touchdown in the second half in the last three games:

“I have an idea. We just have to get it straight. I’m not going to get into the whole thing.”

On whether the problem is strategy, adjustments or execution:

“It starts with me and it’s unacceptable. Then, we have to execute better. We have to put the players in a better position to execute, and when they have opportunities to make plays on the ball, they have to make the play on the ball.”

Oh how he feels about several of the players referring to the loss as frustrating:

“The guys care. These players care. They are a proud bunch, and they want to do well. When you are up by 14 points, you expect to finish the thing off right and do the right things and win the game. I think we are all embarrassed by it. We put a lot of time and effort into it. I don’t think you want to go out and have a game like that.”

On whether Westbrook can play with fractured ribs:

“We just have to see. We have to see how it all works out and exactly the pain level there. Right now he’s very sore, so we’ll see how things go over the next few games.”

On how many fractured ribs Westbrook has:

“He has a couple. Two.”

On whether he knows which play Westbrook’s fractures occurred:

“I do. It was, I believe, the eighth play of the game.”

On why they haven’t been able to throw the ball downfield as successfully as they did earlier in the season:

“We had a couple of other calls down there that we didn’t have an opportunity for, they covered and did a good job on. Those things come, they come in streaks, and you don’t need to have a huge play. We had some nice intermediate throws that were made and a couple that were dropped. We need to be more consistent with it. I probably could have called more and given the guys an opportunity for a few more shots.”

On whether he feels the team is close to being a winning team:

“Yeah. We’re 16 points off. That’s what we’re off. It’s such a small margin between winning and losing in the National Football League. These games come down to the wire. Ninety percent of them are coming down to the wire week after week, so you have to minimize mistakes and you have to maximize consistency. You just keep working and working and working, and as long as you stay aggressive here, I think good things will happen.”

On whether he worries that a series of close losses will shake the team’s confidence:

“I think we have the leadership here where that won’t happen. I think the guys will continue to fight and do well.”

On whether he is confident that what he is saying is resonating through the locker room the way he would like it to:

“Yeah, I think so.”

 On whether he thinks K David Akers will be able to get out of his current slump:

“His leg is strong right now. He’s in a little bit of a slump right now, and then he’ll just pull out of this thing and be fine. He’s kicking the ball well. We just have to straighten it out a little bit.”

 On whether he thinks Akers’ slump will continue:

“The slump will not continue. I’m not into the ‘ifs’ right now.”

 On whether he’ll continue to have Akers make long field goal attempts:

“Yeah. I know he has the leg to do it, and I know he is a good enough kicker to do it, and he works through this thing and he’ll be fine.”

 On whether Andrews will play Sunday:

“We’ll see. He’s still having a low back spasm, so we’ll see how he does here.”

 On how WR Kevin Curtis is progressing:

“He’s getting better. We’ll just see how he does this week.”