Doug Pederson Photo by conbtrastphotography.com

Eagles Head Coach Doug Pederson Press Conference

DOUG PEDERSON: Let me just update you real quick on injuries coming out of this football game. [DE] Bryan Braman suffered a left shoulder AC sprain, and as of right now he’s just going to miss Wednesday’s practice, but expect him for the game.
[CB] Leodis McKelvin, same thing with the hamstring [injury]; got a little tight on him and sore on him. So we’ll keep him out of Wednesday’s practice and rest, and then he’ll be available for the game, as well.
The other ones that got injured that are okay: [DT] Fletcher Cox had the left ankle [injury], he’s fine. [WR] Dorial Green-Beckham, left knee patellar, he just had some tendonitis there in the game — late in the game actually — and he’ll be fine. [T] Lane Johnson, right elbow hyperextension. And then [DT] Bennie Logan [with] a left calf spasm, he’ll be fine. [It is] the one he had from practice the other day.
Lane’s is probably the more significant, but he’ll be fine. He’ll be a little bit limited Wednesday, but he’ll be good for the game.
And then [TE Zach] Ertz, [S Chris] Maragos, [RB Ryan] Mathews, and [G] Isaac [Seumalo] are all fine.

Q. It sounded like you said for the interception by QB Carson Wentz at the end that it was his third progression, but he indicated that it was an alert that he saw coming out of the huddle. Can you walk us through that?
DOUG PEDERSON: It’s a shallow, basic post combination, and it’s really an alerted post. Really the primary is the shallow to the basic on the play to the back. Again, that’s kind of the design of the play. They ran a thief coverage, which means they robbed the free safety, played cover one, and [Wentz] ended up having to — he moved a little bit in the pocket, saw the guy cut, and really took Ertz away, and at that point, by the time he hitched back up into the pocket, his eyes went to [WR] Nelson [Agholor] on the post and he decided to throw it at that time. When in fact, [WR] Jordan [Matthews] on the shallow could have been the throw at that time. But you know, hey, give our guys an opportunity to make plays down the field and hope for either a catch or a PI [pass interference].

Q. What’s the responsibility of the wide receiver in that situation?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, there’s multiple things. One, from a quarterback standpoint, late down the middle is obviously not a good thing. That goes all the way back to my days in Green Bay with Brett Favre [former Packers QB], talking about that kind of stuff, and those are things you learn.

The second thing is when the ball goes up, it’s our ball or nobody’s ball. That’s the mentality. That’s the mindset. That’s what we coach. That’s what we teach.

And then just being able to track the football and Nelson had an opportunity to make a play there from where the ball was thrown; slightly outside, I mean, you know — it was a deep throw. But typically it’s either our ball or nobody’s ball.

Q. In regards to that play, it seemed like Carson was throwing the ball deep quite a bit during OTAs and early in the training camp. Is that something that you noticed, too?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I think early in OTAs just getting an idea of the offense, sometimes you can make those types of throws early [when] trying to understand the complexity of the offense. But listen, this is a teachable moment for him. Next time in that situation he’ll definitely understand what’s going on, I think, and not make those decisions.

The one thing about Carson is it’s a short-term mentality. It happens once, he forgets it [and] he moves on. That’s what we’ve got to do in this situation and get ready for this week.

Q. So you’re saying ideally, the ball should have gone to Jordan Matthews?
DOUG PEDERSON: I mean, the next time or had he seen the rotation of the safeties and what not, yeah, I would suggest that he teach off the film and find Jordan.

Q. Is that a spot where he’s maybe a little too aggressive and you have to rein him in?
DOUG PEDERSON: No, not at all. Not at all. No. No, and I won’t rein him in.

Q. But in that situation, you only need a field goal and you had K Caleb Sturgis in the dome and he was kicking well. Before he goes out for the series, do you need to kind of go over the situational awareness?
DOUG PEDERSON: And we do. Listen, I was down there calling time-outs when the defense was on the ball and I was on the radio with Frank [Eagles Offensive Coordinator Frank Reich]; we were getting ready for our two-minute drive and we knew that we were going to have time. Chances are we were going to be out of time-outs, obviously, so we were covering all the situations. Again, listen, this is his fourth start. We’re beating him up over his fourth NFL start, and he did some great things now in this football game. Not one play is going to magnify him or our performance in this football game.

Q. When RB Ryan Mathews fumbled, should he have been holding the ball on the outside?
DOUG PEDERSON: Again, it goes back to that throwing it late down the middle of the field rule for the quarterback. You’d usually like to carry it on your outside arm. Jordan Matthews had a block, kind of got blown up there. Lane was pulling around the edge, and it just — Detroit, they made a tremendous play and just kind of caught us kind of ‘bang bang’ in that situation. But ideally, I think as a runner, yeah, you would want to carry it in your outside arm.

Q. Regarding Detroit’s late fumble recovery, a lot of people have asked me on Twitter and emails, what’s the rule? We all saw how the ball was recovered, the guy snapped it back between his legs to the guy inbounds, but the ball was touching C Jason Kelce who was lying partly out of bounds first. Is it not dead then?
DOUG PEDERSON: It is. It’s a dead ball out of bounds. That’s the rule. That was one of the things I wanted to make sure this morning that I was correct and accurate in that ruling. It’s just one of those things. But we can’t cough the ball up.

Q. Did you check that with the League then?
DOUG PEDERSON: Jon Ferrari [Eagles Manager of Football Compliance], who is very versed on the rules, he and I talked about it. We actually discussed it during the game because these situations come up throughout the league, and we see video of this kind of stuff all the time. You know, it’s something that — obviously it’s a turnover so it’s a booth situation [and] booth review, and it’s out of our hands.

Q. What’s the explanation that you got after the booth review?
DOUG PEDERSON: That he didn’t touch it. It was not touched. It wasn’t touched by us.

Q. Are you guys going to send something to the League on that?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, we’ll send a few clips in from this game. But again, that’s not why we lost this football game.

Q. What did you think of the disparity in penalties? It was 14-2.
DOUG PEDERSON: We almost overcame it and won it, and that’s a tribute to the football team and the way the guys battled. To have as many plays on defense to start this game — three drives, there was like 32 plays, and if you count penalties and everything, it’s a bunch of football. That was their game. Our game was we battled, we hung in there, and the defense played outstanding in the second half. We made plays on offense and had a chance to win it with two minutes to go in the game.

Q. You had a couple of delay of game penalties.
DOUG PEDERSON: Correct.

Q. Did the play call get in late or was Carson maybe over adjusting?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, the one down in the red zone, all week long — this is a team [that] they like to zero blitz you down there. So we had some kills and some audibles this week that we wanted to put in this week to maximize the blitz and protect the throw or protect the run. And he was trying to get us into that protection and get guys lined up that we had practiced. It was just time, noise, all of that factored into those delay of games.

Q. As you look at the 14 penalties, and a number of them were personal fouls, was that representative of the way you played? Or did you think the officiating was a factor?
DOUG PEDERSON: I’m not going to get into the officiating. We have to correct them. We have to play smarter, obviously. The facemask on [DT] Fletcher [Cox] is always going to be an unsportsmanlike [conduct penalty], it’s going to be a personal foul, those types of things. We’ve just got to play smart. As I mentioned, I think that how we came back in this game, I think it just shows the character of this football team and where we are from even a year ago. I think this game a year ago got out of hand, and it got shut down, and it got blown out. This group didn’t do that yesterday. This group was resilient. This group battled. The sideline was calm. Whatever adversity came our way, we were able to overcome it. It was like that two-minute drive before the end of the half. We were in first-and-25, second-and-23 and we overcame that and got the three [points].

It’s a sign of a good football team.

Q. Where do you think that calmness on the sidelines came from?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I think it comes from the coaches, No. 1. There’s no panic on the sideline there [with] the communication. The thing is, the better communication you have with your players on the sideline, it just kind of eases — if we’re not prepared as a staff, players are going to know it, players are going to see it and then there’s chaos. Our staff and my staff is prepared on game day, and we’re able to make the necessary adjustments. I think it starts with the staff and then it works itself down to the players.

Q. At this point, are you getting what you want from Nelson Agholor?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, again, he made — gosh, he made a nice couple contested catches. He’s putting himself in a position to make plays. You know, with play calling and different — as the game kind of unfolds, I don’t necessarily feature one guy over another. I think you just play the game as it is and you ask your quarterback to progression read and all that.

But Nelson has put himself in a position to help us, and again yesterday, he had a couple of nice catches. DGB [WR Dorial Green-Beckham] stood out yesterday [with] a couple of nice, quick throws and runs. You could see the strength that he has.

As a group, yeah, as a group it was a good performance by them.

Q. DE Vinny Curry played just 16 of 61 snaps, while DE Connor Barwin played 52 and DE Brandon Graham played 53. What’s going on there?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, again, it comes down to the way we rotate and sometimes it’s personnel on offense. Whether a team is going hurry-up or not and huddling quite a bit and Vinny is a big part of that group. It’s just a matter of the rotating basis and keeping guys as fresh as we can throughout the game. But there’s nothing other than that to read into.

Q. Would you expect more playing time out of a guy that signed a five-year, $47 million deal in the offseason?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I mean, you’re asking a question that — we rotate so much at the defensive line position that Fletcher obviously gets his snaps, Brandon Graham gets his snaps and Connor [gets his snaps]. These guys are getting their reps. When you’re in there, you’re called upon to make plays, and you have to make the most of those opportunities.

Q. With the running back rotation, do you anticipate it’ll be Mathews and RB Darren Sproles? Is there going to be a role for RB Wendell Smallwood and RB Kenjon Barner moving forward? Or are you just going to stick with those first two guys?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, you know, Ryan and Darren, as I’ve said before, are the two primary guys. Wendell had a role against the Steelers, obviously, when Ryan was out, and we were able to pick up sort of the slack there. I think Kenjon is the same way. When we get opportunities to put them in the game, we will. But going forward it’s Ryan and Darren, and we’ll spell those other two guys when we need to.

Q. In following up with a question yesterday about taking LB Nigel Bradham and LB Jordan Hicks off the field, what made this the game you decided to do that?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, if you saw the third series of the game, it was a 14-play drive [with] 12 total plays. There were three third downs. One was a false start, and the other two were dime personnel — or one was nickel and one was dime. We had an opportunity on third-and-11 to make the play: [LB] Mychal [Kendricks] was in position [and] just didn’t make the play. Riddick [Lions RB Theo Riddick] is a great back and he made him miss.

The other one was in the red zone and it was dime, and [LB Stephen] Tulloch was on the field. The defense had previously been on the field 22 plays. Basically the offense kind of — We were, I think eight plays-and-out on that first drive [and] just needed to give guys a break, just to give them a blow. It was a long first half for our defense staying on the field.

Q. Lane Johnson seems to think he’ll hear something Wednesday or Thursday on the suspension. Will you go ahead and give someone else like G/T Allen Barbre or T Halapoulivaati Vaitai reps at right tackle?
DOUG PEDERSON: Again, until we get the final word, Lane is my right tackle, and I’m going to keep going that route. If Lane is limited due to his injury on Wednesday, then as I mentioned before, we’ll probably have Big V [Vaitai] step up and get some reps this week, particularly maybe on Wednesday.

Q. You said the emphasis was that this is still a good team and a 3-1 team. With so much momentum going before the bye, how do you keep it from spiraling in the other direction?
DOUG PEDERSON: You know what, and that’s a great question because I saw how ticked off this team was at the end of this football game despite everything that went on in this game: negative, positive, the whole thing. This is a different football team than a year ago. This is a resilient football team. This is a team that when I walked on the plane last night when we were halfway home, everybody is on their iPads watching the game. They’re watching [and] they’re correcting the mistakes. They’re wanting to get back out on the football field. From a coach’s perspective, that’s great to see. That’s great to see your players take ownership that way.

The leaders of your team really step up. I mean, yeah, as bad as it hurts, at the same time, they understand that hey, we let one slide. You know, my message to them was that every week is going to be a challenge, and every week has its own circumstances. But it was great to see the veteran guys and really all the guys back there from Carson to Malcolm to Fletcher to Connor to [TE] Brent Celek. Everybody is back there looking at the game. This thing, it won’t spiral. It won’t spiral. They’re taking ownership of it.

Q. Doug, this is your first loss. When you look back at how things unfolded, is there anything you would have done differently? Are there any mistakes that you or your staff made?
DOUG PEDERSON: You know, just like players and maybe more so, we look at it from that perspective. And I’ve got to look at it as a play caller and [ask] did I put our guys in the proper spot? You know, obviously hindsight is 20/20 and you can sit now with a fresh set of eyes and go, maybe that call there or this call there. But coming away from this game, even under all the circumstances surrounding this football game, I felt like, and we felt as a staff this morning, that we gave ourselves an opportunity. We gave ourselves a chance.

I felt like going into this game, that our tight ends against their linebackers, for instance, was a match-up in our favor. Could I have called more middle of the field with our tight ends? Yeah, but we were getting a couple calls against us at that time, too.

You know, you always look at that kind of stuff and come away thinking, ‘Maybe this, maybe that,’ but at the end of the day, I feel comfortable about how I called the game and how our staff handled some of the adversity and what we overcame.

Q. I know you haven’t been able to dig too much into the film, but what do you think was Carson’s best play?
DOUG PEDERSON: There were two [plays] and they were towards the end of the game: when he hit Jordan Matthews on a dagger route and it was a big, big play for us. And then he hit Jordan again on a third-and-6 right before the end of the game. Those were two big, third-down throws that not many rookie quarterbacks are going to make right now and he’s been able to make those.