Eagles head coach Doug Pederson. Photo by Jesse Simmers / contrastphotography.com

Eagles Head Coach Doug Pederson Press Conference
12.7.16

DOUG PEDERSON: Good morning. Let me just up update you on practice: First of all, we’ll be inside. The field is wet and saturated from the rain, so we’ll go inside for practice. Second thing, injuries for today: [WR] Dorial Green-Beckham, we’ll hold him from practice. [He is] still real sore in that oblique area. And then Big V [T Halapoulivaati Vaitai], again, he’s doing well, but we’ll hold him from practice. He’s still a little bit away from returning.

But everybody else, [RB] Ryan [Mathews] will practice today, [WR] Jordan Matthews will practice today, and everybody else will go.

Q. Is Ryan Mathews healthy enough to play, or are you going to slow play him into returning?
DOUG PEDERSON: He’s good to play, yeah. He’s good to play. We’ll find out today, but he’s cleared and ready to go.

Q. With Jordan Matthews coming back, is there still going to be an opportunity for WR Paul Turner? Will you guys try to find ways to get him involved, even though Jordan will be back in his normal spot?
DOUG PEDERSON: There are, there are. And these are things we talked about the last couple of days as a staff getting Paul in there, even with Jordan coming back. I think it can be a benefit to the offense to have both of those guys ready to go.

Q. There have been so many games this year that kind of follow the same template where you guys get behind early, 10 points, 14 points in the first quarter, and it kind of takes you out of being able to run the ball, and you end up throwing 50 times. Any thoughts on why you guys keep digging these early holes? I think you’ve been outscored like 65-33 in the first quarter. Why is that happening?
DOUG PEDERSON: One, the start to games, it’s a mindset. It’s truly a mindset. It’s one of those things where as a team you want to come out and you want to kind of make the first punch, so to speak, or swing first. We did it against Green Bay. We went down and scored, we matched touchdown for touchdown there. And we’ve done it throughout the course of the season. We’ve got to be a little more consistent offensively, too. That can also help. And then defensively it’s just a matter of working to get off the field, try to on third downs just do what we can by scheme through the play, through a PBU [pass breakup], whatever we can to get off the field on third down becomes a mindset. It kind of sets the tone for the rest of the game if you can do that early in a football game.

Q. When that happens that often, do you look at the preparation, what you guys are doing Sunday morning before kickoff? Do you feel like they’re mentally ready to go at 1 o’clock?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, I do look at all of that, and that’s part of my job is the schedule and all. But these guys are in a great frame of mind on game day. They’re loose; they’re energetic; they’re ready to go. They’re focused. You see it in pregame. It’s been unfortunate, but it’s something we’ve got to focus in on a little bit more. Obviously, this week, division opponent, and try to strike first.

Q. Can you and Eagles offensive coordinator Frank Reich, as former quarterbacks, rely on your experience to help QB Carson Wentz for these next three weeks? How does that manifest itself?
DOUG PEDERSON: I think the experience can help everybody in these last four weeks, not just the quarterback position. But obviously with our backgrounds we can definitely help Carson and continue to coach. But I think too, Frank’s been on some great teams, I’ve been on great teams in the past, and how we practice, how our work ethic is during this last four weeks of the season become very important, and we can lean on these experiences with our guys.

Q. Carson is on pace to throw an extremely high amount of passes for a quarterback, and we’ve seen how it’s affected him. How do you counter going for it versus protecting the future of your franchise?
DOUG PEDERSON: Going for it, as …?

Q. Going for the playoffs this year versus —
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, that’s a great question, but this is not the time to pull off, obviously. We’ve got to continue. Like you said, we’re still in the [playoff] conversation. Even though it’s down there, we’re still in the conversation. Four games is a lot of football. It’s a quarter of your season, and by no means do we want to ease up now. This is not the time. This is actually the time to push forward and still be aggressive and do the things that we did earlier in the season and try to get back to that level of play. That’s the beauty of having an opportunity.

The other thing, too, is with three out of the next four [games] at home becomes huge for us down the stretch in hopes of getting to where we want to be.

Q. That being said, is Wentz being affected by throwing too much?
DOUG PEDERSON: I don’t think so. I think the effect is that we have to do better in the run game. I’ve got to do a better job there calling more runs and trying to maintain or limit the number of throws. Again, you never want to throw 60 times. It’s kind of a recipe for disaster. But I don’t have any concern with Carson. I think Carson’s right on track and where he needs to be, and he does an outstanding job every week and you look at some of the throws he’s made. So I don’t concern myself with the number of throws. We just try to limit them when we can.

Q. You’ll have T Lane Johnson back from suspension in a couple of weeks. Do you have a plan for him yet and will you try to throw him back in there?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, obviously he comes back on a short week too against the Giants in a couple of weeks. But we’ve got to see where Big V’s [T Halapoulivaati Vaitai] at; he’s obviously coming off an injury — hopefully in a week or so – and we’ll see where that’s at. But we’re beginning the conversations right now for when [Johnson] does return. We’ll have to see. We’ve still got two games. We’ve got to get through these two games and see how Allen [G/T Allen Barbre] does. But, listen, [Johnson] was a big part of our success early in the season, so I wouldn’t hesitate to put him back in there.

Q. When you look at Wentz, he really hasn’t had a big of a break from football this year, considering he played a college season and then began preparing for the NFL. Maybe he had a little break between mini-camp and training camp. Do you see any sort of mental fatigue with him?
DOUG PEDERSON: No, I don’t. He’s played a lot of football coming out of college, like you mentioned. He’s obviously been in the playoffs with his school and now he’s playing a 16-game [schedule], or at this point, a 12-game schedule. I don’t see the fatigue. I still see him in the building early. He and Chase [QB Chase Daniel] and the quarterbacks studying the tape, and getting himself ready to go. He’s still doing everything to prepare himself and I don’t see that fatigue right now.

Q. What’s the response been from the players based off your comments from Monday?
DOUG PEDERSON: They have been great. The players are positive. The players know. I mean, they’re players and they understand. I’ve been in that chair before, and so I get it. I think that’s the great thing about having played the game, is you can relate to those guys and you know exactly what they’re going through. We’ve had a great response and look forward to a great week.

Q. You mentioned you were going to talk to TE Zach Ertz about his non-block from the Bengals game. What was that conversation like?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, if you really go back and look at the play, Carson was ahead of [Ertz] at the time and [a block] wouldn’t have been a factor because he was going to go out of bounds at the time. Obviously, Zach has taken a lot of heat for it, but at the same time, he understands that those plays will come up again and he knows he needs to make one.
Q. When you look at the running game the last two weeks, do you feel you’ve gotten enough out of that position?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, we fell behind, so it’s hard. It gets us out of that mode just a little bit. But I like where we’re at. I do lean on that offensive line quite a bit. I talk to them during the week and say this might be the week we need to rush the ball 30, 35 times. They’re up for the challenge, obviously. With the addition of Ryan [Mathews] coming back, it definitely gives us depth and a bigger [running] back back there, and hopefully we can get back to running the ball like we did a few weeks ago.

Q. What have you seen from RB Wendell Smallwood as the lead back?
DOUG PEDERSON: Wendell has done everything we’ve asked him to do. He’s learning, too, just like a lot of our young players. He’s learning the game. He’s learning how to be patient in the run game. Using his eyes more than his God-given ability, which is obviously great, and he keeps working every day. Again, it’s a learning process. I was looking and just thinking again this morning, we’ve had five rookies, five drafted rookies that have had a lot of play time this week, and that’s valuable. That’s great experience for them going forward.

Q. What came out of your conversations with defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz about how to proceed?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, we talked and listen, we kind of both agree that sometimes if you’re going to blitz more, you’re going to ask your back end to hold up or whatever. You’re going to give something to get something. It was a fine line there. Obviously going back to the game on Sunday, there were 17 pressures in that game and we’ve got to make sure when those are dialed up, a lot of them can be run pressures as well to stop the run. Others are obviously pass pressures to put pressure on your quarterback. Listen, we’ve got to trust the process. We’re not going to reinvent the wheel. We’re not going to change at this point just for sake of change. If it benefits us, obviously we will, and I trust Jim and the defensive staff, obviously, to have a great game plan going forward.

Q. In that first meeting with the Redskins, what stood out? What do you want to change in regards to this week coming up?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, that was Big V’s first start, so that was obviously one of the things going into the game, how well he was going to play and protection and things like that. Knowing going down there it’s a tough place to play, obviously. Felt like we had opportunities in the game. We didn’t capitalize on a few things in the football game. Fell behind again defensively. [S] Malcolm [Jenkins] had the pick six and kind of kept us right in there. Special teams had a big play. So those are things that kept us in that football game. I know offensively we have to do a little bit better executing our game plan, just understanding. It’s great to now finally have a home game here with them, and a great opportunity against a good football team that’s playing extremely well.

Q. Getting back to Carson, is there anything you can do to help him manage the losing? Something he’s not used to? Do you talk to him about it? Do you sense any frustration?
DOUG PEDERSON: Obviously I was a part of — and I mentioned this to the guys — I was part of two teams. In Cleveland we were 3-and-13, and then Philadelphia, my first year, being 5-and-11. Just kind of leaning back on those experiences and how we fought through. How we fought through adversity. How people try to divide the team or say negative things about players or whatever. We just kind of kept that thing nice and tight. So those are things that I can lean back, when you talk about the experience factor. I lean back on those experiences to relay to Carson how we went about our business during those following weeks to come and kept that team together. We had great leadership on the team like we do now. With him, it’s just a matter of keeping him grounded, keeping him level headed. He’s a leader of this football team, and he doesn’t have to do it all himself. That’s the beauty of it. There are 10 other guys on offense, and 11 on defense, and special teams that have a big part in this whole process.