The
Eagles may not be making their own breaks but they did a few handed to them
over the weekend.

All
three teams in their division lost on Sunday including the New York Giants, who
dropped a 24-20 decision to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Redskins lost to
Carolina 21-13 and Dallas was edged by the Atlanta Falcons, 19-13.

If
the Birds (3-4) defeat the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football, they
would be a game behind Big Blue (6-3) in the loss column who have yet to have
their bye week.

A
win would put some distance between the Redskins (3-6) and the Cowboys (3-5).

The
talk during the week was the Eagles lack of attitude against the Falcons. On
both sides of the ball.

The
Falcons scored in their first six possessions and the offense could only
generate 17 points, its average for the season.

Special
teams, especially kick and punt returns, have yet to have any real impact in
any game this season.

Offensive
Coordinator Marty Mornhinweg was asked what happened to the Eagles enthusiasm against
Atlanta, a game the Birds really needed but failed to mount any real threat to
win the game.

“I thought at a certain point in that
ballgame, I’m not sure it was missing, but we needed more of it,” Mornhinweg
said. “I’m talking about that certain mentality and that attitude. You
understand, I’m disappointed because we hung in there and hung in there when
things aren’t going right and that’s typically what you do. Then, you give
yourselves a chance to win at the end and we didn’t get that thing done. So,
right there is where you need it. You need it all the time, but right there.
I’m not talking just about me; we’re all disappointed as an offensive unit
about that.”

Mornhinweg was
asked how he found the attitude that he thought was missing.

“Well, some things are unexplainable, he
said. “But we talked about it; it’s a certain attitude that we are the baddest
men on the field and that mentality that we’re going to be aggressive, aggressive, aggressive and it’s just that simple.”

Defensive
coordinator Todd Bowles was asked how to fix the mistakes that were made last
game.

“They
are fixable,” Bowles said.  “Like I said,
we took a lot of good things out of the ballgame. There were a lot of things
[that we did in] training camp and OTAs, day one kind of things that shouldn’t

have happened and didn’t happen. We corrected them in the meeting and we’ll go
from there.”

The
Eagles are at or near the bottom of the league in takaways.

Going into the game
against the Saints, the Eagles were a minus-9 in the giveaway-takeaways. Quarterback
Mike Vick has thrown eight interceptions and the Eagles have fumbled the ball
an incredible 17 times, losing nine of them, five by Vick.

Bowles
said the Eagles will get theirs in bunches. In the season opener, the Eagles
forced four turnovers against Cleveland. Game two against Baltimore they got
two. Since then, the Birds have forced one turnover in a game twice and three
times the Eagles came up empty.

Saints
quarterback Drew Brees has thrown 20 touchdown passes but has eight
interceptions. Brees has thrown a touchdown pass in 50 consecutive games, an
NFL record. So, with the Saints at 2-5 and playing with a historically bad
defense, Brees will want to keep his streak alive and may press if it gets late in
the game and he has not found the end zone. So is this the week?

 “That’s a tough question,” Bowles said. “They
come in bunches and you’re always hoping for that one to get you sparked. We
work at it every day and we’re trying to get then. I think they’re going to
come, but there isn’t one thing that you can put on it to say this is why we
are or why we aren’t doing it. Some of them just fall in your lap and there are
a lot of them that you have to work for. We just have to keep working at it.”

Vick was asked how
excited the team is to get to New Orleans and try to turn things around.

“We’re excited about this weekend” said Vick,
who had to hear all week he may be benched after three consecutive losses and
an anemic offense. “We’re excited about this game. I think it’s important for
guys to come out and just enjoy the game of football. We know how tough it was
when we got into it and now we’re in it. You’ve got to cherish the moment, take
full advantage of it, have fun at the same time and continue to keep pushing.
You’ve got to want to get better and you’ve got to be destined for greatness in
this game. And that’s everybody individually and that’s what makes a collective
team effort to win football games.”

Vick stated earlier in the week he will
return to playing football the way that made him an elite quarterback. And that
would be running the ball more often, especially when he cannot find an open
receiver.

Vick was asked if his
attempt to play his style of football once again will lead to more turnovers.

“No. Absolutely not,” said Vick, who enters
the game with a QB rating of 78.6. “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s
just, I think I’ve got to play my style of football [and] at the same time,
still take care of the football and not be reckless with it. Be aggressive; the
way we played last week, we’ve got to be us. We’ve got a personality as a
football team and we’ve got to let it show.”