Andy Reid, Donovan McNabb and Brian Dawkins all spoke to reporters after the morning practice. Here's what they had to say.
Opening Remarks:
“Injuries, [WR] [Michael] Gasperson was out with back spasms. [DT] Montae Reagor had knee swelling, we held him out. [LB]Dedrick Roper [is out] with a foot sprain. Again, these are ones that shouldn’t take too long, here, with them coming back. [WR] Bill Sampy [is out] with a quad contusion, and that one might take a little longer than the others. [CB] Lito Sheppard, he left practice with back spasms. [WR] Jason Avant just had a cramp. All in all, I thought it was a good day. It was a day to knock a little rust off and get a little hitting in. We had a nice live period at the end where each group got about ten plays. We’ll kick it up again this afternoon. We’ll be in shells this afternoon, which we’ll be able to get a lot of work done there.”
On whether he has to remind the guys to relax and not be too anxious because this is their first day hitting:
“You saw some guys, at least in the pass game, that dropped some balls that normally don’t drop balls. I think they were all geared up and had a little juice going. But, it was good. You want that. You’d much rather have it that way then have to try to gear them up. I was happy with the intensity, they’ll work through the rest of it. Things will smooth out as we go along here.”
On whether this year’s defense is more physical than last year’s defense:
“Well, we’ll see with time, but they sure look like they’re flying around today. They looked like they made a lot of nice plays. They were rallying the football. We ran the football a little bit today just to get everybody settled down, from a nerves standpoint, and it looked like they did a nice job against the run game.”
On what he would like to see from DT Brodrick Bunkley:
“Just continued progress. He’s worked very hard this offseason, and he’s improved. Without looking at the film, it looked like he did a pretty decent job out there today.”
On his impressions of QB Donovan McNabb so far:
“He’s fine. His leg feels good, it feels strong. I think a few days into it we’ll know a little bit more, as fatigue sets in. Right now, he’s very strong and feels good. His arm looks great. I thought it was important- I mentioned this to him after practice- that he got the rush. Before, we’ve been doing so much seven on seven with him and it’s good to have him get out there and have that rush come at him and let him settle his feet down and throw the football, and he did that. He was very calm back there and really trusted the offensive line. I thought that was a big step for him.”
On whether McNabb will play in the first game if his progress continues like this:
“[It’s]Way too early. I’m not really concerned about that, first of all. I’m concerned about how it goes long season. I’ll make sure he’s ready by that first game. We’ll just take it day by day and see how he does.”
On Eagle Joe and how the team arranged a limousine for him to come to practice today:
“Joe can’t drive anymore, so he’s missed more practices this last week than he’s missed in the past 30 years or so. We wanted to get him up here and have him be able to enjoy a practice. The first day is always exciting, and he is a big part of it. I know nobody on our team has made the Hall of Fame except him- he’s in there. When you have your own little plaque in there, that’s something special. So, we enjoy having him out here.”
On TE L.J. Smith and his progress since yesterday’s practice:
“He did well. He got quite a few reps on seven on seven. That’s all positive work, and we’ll just continue on with it. We don’t want any setbacks. We want continued progress forward.”
On whether he has a number of plays for McNabb to complete by preseason:
“No. I do it by feel- see how he’s doing.”
On whether McNabb will get a lot of work if he’s feeling good:
“Yeah, with maybe the exception of the first game, we’ll see how that goes. It probably won’t be much different than what he’s done before. We’ll just have to see how he feels.”
On whether he has to worry about McNabb’s mechanics or overcompensating with his knee:
“You just don’t want him to get fatigued, where bad things happen there. Again, you just gauge that. You gauge that with communication with Donovan [McNabb] and [Head Athletic Trainer] Rick [Burkholder] and see where he’s at and how he’s feeling, and take it from there. Right now, he’s as smooth as he’s ever been.”
On whether McNabb and RB Brian Westbrook will share the leadership role this year:
“Absolutely, I mentioned that at the end of the season. If there was one part of [Westbrook’s] game that went to the next level it was the leadership part of it. He wasn’t afraid to speak up and it was all positive. He knew when to get on the guys. He knew when to pat them on the back. I thought he did a heck of job with that.”
On his impressions of QB Kevin Kolb today:
“I saw some good things. It’s not easy, obviously, coming out your first day and you’ve got all the eyes on you. And there are a few of them over here [referring to the media]. I thought he was poised, and threw the ball well.”
QB Donovan McNabb Press Conference
8-1-07
On whether he feels like he passed a test today:
“It’s going to be a slow process, but there were no worries in my mind of coming out and being nervous or anything like that. It was just playing football. I’ve done it before; it’s kind of like riding a bike. We’ve been able to come out in the early part of camp with the rookies and practice yesterday. Today, the adrenaline was high from a lot of guys on this team. Most importantly, for all of us, we [are trying to] get that chemistry and timing down. Today was just another step we needed to make to get the ball rolling.”
On whether he has to be more mindful of his mechanics because of his knee:
“No, not at all. I’ve worked throughout the offseason. It’s not a worry process right now, it’s just going out and executing. I’ve had an opportunity to do it for months of dropping back, moving in the pocket, getting out of the pocket. In this situation, it’s just going out and being able to put the ball in the position for guys to make plays for us, and handing the ball off and getting out of the way when [RB Brian] Westbrook starts to run.”
On whether it bothered him to have a pass rush coming at him:
“It didn’t bother me at all. We were able to execute, my eyes continued to stay downfield. If I had to get out of the pocket, I did that, [I was able to throw] it on the run. If there were any questions, I definitely answered them for myself, but there weren’t. The guys knew exactly what I was able to do and for all of us to go out and perform today.”
On whether there was any part of him that was looking forward to getting out of the pocket:
“I’ve done it throughout the offseason. I already know that I can do it. As far as confidence is concerned, I came into camp with that confidence, knowing that I can do that. I just have a brace on it. The process of being able to adjust with the brace, I’ve done that in the beginning of the rookie camp. Now it’s pretty much just doing it consistently for 60 or 65 plays with pressure on it, being able to move and adjust, getting hit, sliding or whatever I have to do, and bouncing back up and getting to the next play.”
On whether there is a difference in the brace, not knowing when he has to flush out of the pocket:
“Not at all. It doesn’t restrict me from doing anything that I have been able to do. I wasn’t even focused on it, to be honest with you. I think that’s the way you have to go about it, not worrying that it’s on and just going out and playing football. My focus was just to go out and get completions, make the right checks if I have to, and be able to get this offense moving.”
On how important it was to get the timing down with the receivers before coming to training camp:
“That’s why I do it. That’s why I went out to practice, to take that step in minicamp, and that’s why I had the guys come out to Arizona. That’s the mindset of being able to come into camp having already made that step. Now with the pads on, just focusing on how their speed is. After about 15 or 20 plays, being able to adjust to that and having them be able to adjust to the ball and where the ball comes out. I think that’s what we’re doing now. We had an opportunity to do that in Arizona, where coming into camp, it gave us that edge, knowing that we had that time.”
On whether he has a time frame of when he will be 100%:
“It’s different for everyone. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have done it. Some people say you probably won’t be at 100 [percent] probably for a year. Some have had it after nine months; some have had it after eight months. It all depends on how you go about it, by practicing and continuing to strengthen the leg. 75%, who knows what the real percentage is? I just kind of threw a number out, I could have said 40%, and you guys would have gone crazy again. I could be [at 80]; I could be at 90, who knows? (Jokingly) It really started bothering me today, so it probably went down to about 30 percent. We’ll see who talks about that.”
On his impressions of WR Kevin Curtis:
“Kevin Curtis and I spent time together in Arizona. My goal was to get to know him on, as well as off, the field. I think it’s very important to do that when you’re out on this football field. If you’re thinking on the same wavelength, I think it goes a long way, not only for certain situations that we’ll be faced with in practice, but it will prepare us for games. Kevin Curtis, as we know, can stretch the field. I think the thing that not a lot of people know about him is that he runs great routes and he has great hands. You want to put the ball in a position where he can catch and make a guy miss and explode up field. I think he showed that a little bit today by picking up the first down after the catch. We’re all confident in his hands. We’re going to continue to work together throughout this training camp and get us ready for a game situation.”
On his impressions of DE Jevon Kearse:
“I rehabbed with Jevon, and the things he’s able to do now, he was able to do four months ago. You talk about a guy that works extremely hard who probably doesn’t receive the credit that he deserves, I expect him to have a breakout year this year. For those who have kind of turned their back on him, they’ll be sorry. We’re all fully confident, knowing that he’ll go out there and give us everything that Jevon knows he’s going to give. To come off that corner, when you see number 93, that’s a scary feeling.”
On the comparisons between WR Reggie Brown and Colts WR Marvin Harrison:
“Route running, a knack for making big plays, can break out any time, and is deceiving. When I had an opportunity to play with [Marvin], I was young and he was the big name. You really don’t know how fast he is until he gets on top of you. He’ll give you three moves and you don’t know which move to take. As you can see throughout his career in Indianapolis, he’s a great route runner. He had about 140 catches. He probably could have had 160 catches because 180 were thrown to him. [Colts QB] Peyton [Manning] is really confident knowing that, in any situation, he can go to him. That’s kind of the way we feel about Reggie.”
On whether he sees Brown putting up similar numbers to Harrison:
“We don’t throw the ball the way Indianapolis throws it, as far as routes are concerned. I could see Reggie not necessarily putting up the stats that Marvin did with 140-some catches. (Jokingly) We’d have to throw the ball a lot and you all would talk about the percentages again and blame me for it.”
On what it was like to rehab with DE Jevon Kearse:
“You probably won’t believe it, but it was an exciting day—exciting because we were competing against each other. We wouldn’t let anyone put their heads down, or talk about their injuries. And, even if somebody looks bad on one of the rehab things we were doing, we’d talk about it or crack jokes. That would motivate you to get better. Although, we don’t play the same position, we still made it that we were. If it was sprint drills, we were racing, if it was pulling the harness with weight or running in a circle like we were defensive ends trying to get to the quarterback. We were kind of pushing each other to come back and not only be ready at 100 percent, but be the best at our position.”
On rehabbing with other players:
“Personally you have to go with, not really who you trust, but the confidence knowing that somebody you trained or rehabbed with, that’s who you go with. It all comes down to, when the time comes to step back on the field, will you be ready? I went back and forth from Arizona to Philly, having that confidence that I would get the best rehab with the guys here at the Eagles, as well as in Arizona. So, it wasn’t a downfall. The fact that we were all here together, and guys that came back and had small injuries that wanted to get it taken care of, we continued to push each other. When you wake up every morning and know that some guys are vacationing, some guys are kind of hanging out and enjoying their offseason, and you’re stuck in rehab, it’s not an exciting deal. You have to make it exciting. If it’s getting together for lunch, if it’s pushing each other in the weight room, or on the treadmill, or out on the field, make it exciting for those two or three hours that you’re in there. When it’s all said and done, you’re looking forward to getting back out there and getting good results.”
On whether he can sense a difference this year in the leadership of the team:
“No, I’m the leader of this team. It’s great that everybody assumed the role after I went out, because somebody has to do it. In a lot of ways, I handle the leadership role a little differently than others. I’m not going to [be] rah-rah, or slap you across the helmet, or push you or anything. I’m going to talk to you. I think that’s the way I’ve handled it. If something’s not going right, you have to be held accountable for the mistakes that you make. Don’t rely on somebody else to apologize for your mistakes, you’ve got to step up to the plate and say, ‘You know what, I messed up, I’ve got to take care of it.’ I’ve done it, and many other players have done it. In the situation that I’m in, as far as being the quarterback, if you’re not the rah-rah kind of guy and always yelling or slamming your helmet, then people think you’re not in that role. There are ways of handling it. We’re all professionals, we’re all men. You don’t really need anybody to sit there and get in your head and tell you what to do. When you’re playing in this position and you’re here at this job, you have to take it seriously. If you want to be the best at what you do, then you need to be motivated to go out there and do it. If I can give you any inspiration or motivation by talking to you or pushing you, whatever it may be, then I’ll do that. But as far as me throwing you to a spot where you need to be, and doing all of that, that’s not me.”
On his expectations for this year:
“It’s tough to say. If you look at some of the other teams, [there are teams] who have a lot of veterans who have played together, especially in our division—you have Dallas, Washington, you have the Giants. For us, we have some new guys stepping in, and we just came out of our first day in pads. It’s tough to say. We all look great in shorts. Now it’s time to put the pads on. We’ve got to see guys stopping the run, guys stopping the pass. On offense, being able to execute the run again and the pass, and doing it effectively. It’s great to look back at what we did statistically last year by being in the top two offenses in the league, but that was last year. Now we have to do it again.”
FS Brian Dawkins Press Conference
8-1-07
On whether he’s talked to his defensive teammates about what went wrong during the playoff loss to the New Orleans Saints:
“Yeah, that amongst other things, I talked about. I’m not going to get into any details. This is really a challenge for all of us; every last one of us to go out and not only do our job, but do it to the fullest and correct a lot of things that we didn’t do last year.”
On why this defense needs a challenge:
“I don’t know if we needed it, but I felt like it was something I wanted to say.”
On what LB Takeo Spikes brings to the defense:
“Today was a good start for us, but not only his emotion, when you watch practice, when you run a play his way, you’re going to be in on it; he’s going to stuff things up. When you have guys like that that can take care of their responsibilities and do it the way he does it- he steps up everything- that makes everybody else’s job that much easier. It makes my job a lot easier, and I probably won’t have as many tackles this year as I did last year, because he’s going to be doing most of it in front of us.”
On whether he can play confidently with SS Sean Considine next to him:
“Absolutely.”
On whether Considine needs to improve his run-stopping ability:
“The thing about Sean- I’ve said this a lot- Sean was hurt last year. He played on pretty much a bum shoulder. When you go through an offseason of rehabbing a shoulder, you can’t get into your weight routine. So, he went through a whole offseason doing shoulder routines, and then during the season, he was thrust into the starting lineup. To me, he did a pretty good job. Obviously, there were some plays I’m sure he wishes he had back, but all in all- plus it was his first time starting- so not knowing what to expect in the league was another thing he had going against him. So, I think he did a pretty good job, but there were a lot of things he wishes he could have done better, and I’m looking for him to do that. He’s looking for it also.”
On how important it is to have DE Jevon Kearse back:
“It’s huge; it’s huge. When we have Jevon on the field as such a dimension on that end that teams have to pay attention to, there are certain blocking schemes you can’t use against the Eagles when Jevon is in the game. That’s just being honest. You can’t slide away from him. You have to have someone to make sure they know where he is at all times. And then with the other defenses that [defensive coordinator] Jim [Johnson] has, he gets the chance to stand up sometimes. Now you don’t know where’s he’s going to be at. That’s the type of athlete he is. So, we need Jevon to stay healthy. If he can stay healthy for us throughout the year, there’s no telling what type of damage he’ll do against the other team.”
On whether he talked with QB Donovan McNabb following McNabb’s injury last season:
“I just know how it feels to go down, and [LB Jeremiah Trotter] Trot also, to go down and miss a lot of time with my foot a couple years ago. You’re a part of the team, but because you’re doing rehab and away from everybody, you feel like you’re not a part of it. And then especially when you see your boys struggling a little and you can’t help them, that hurts even worse. We just let him know that he is a part of this, and just take care of that knee and the responsibility you have getting back, and when you get back, we need you. We need you to come out and do what you do. We just made sure that he knew we were thinking about him, and not just thinking about him, but that he was a part of what we were trying to accomplish there.”
On whether he looks at the present or on the past when approaching this season:
“I think a little bit of both. You still have to not think about it, but you never want to get to a point where there’s a ‘here we go again’ type of thing. You never want to get like that as a player. You do utilize it. You say there are plays in the game we should’ve made, and maybe Jevon doesn’t get hurt in that overtime [loss to the New York Giants during week two of the 2006 season] if we had closed out the game like we were supposed to. You do think about those things as a defense. But, we just want to close out things as a team, and I think we started to do that a little better towards the end of the season, not in the middle of the season.”
On what defensive coordinator Jim Johnson has done to improve the rush defense:
“There are some things that Jim has thrown in there, and he’s going to continue to do it. I think there’s an emphasis on us as players as far as the run game, and that’s going to be an emphasis for us as we go. Jim has his views as how he wants this team to be, and we already talked about sacks and turnovers. But I think, as a man-to-man on this defense, we want to shore up one area, and that is the run.”
On whether the changes are drastic or minor:
“There are some little tweaks, and there are some new plays- blitzes- he has in that are going to be pretty fun.”
On why the Eagles rush defense was poor last season:
“I don’t know. I know we had a lot of guys hurt last year. D-linemen and those guys that were in there did the best they could without [many] reps, and I understand that. That still doesn’t take away the fact that we gave up too many yards in certain games, and not being able to get off the field. We can’t do that as a defense. You can’t be a top-ranked defense and not be able to get off the field sometimes. So, I think with healthy guys, the new additions that we have on the defensive side of the ball, and the maturity of [DT Brodrick Bunkley] Bunk, that it’s going to be a better year. I’m not going to make any predictions or stuff, but it’s going to be a better year.”
On whether he thinks Bunkley will have a productive 2007 season:
“He’s ready. I believe he’s ready. You have to wait and see. I’m not going to lift him up, Pro Bowl-man, but I think he understands what we expect of him, and what is expected of him in that position he’s in, and how much we need him to be what we thought he would be.”
On whether he said anything to Bunkley about his play last year:
“I talked to him. I didn’t get on him, but we talked to him. He was going through a tough rookie year, and I know he’s happy to have that behind him. You can just look at his face [and see] how much more confident he is, in the scheme, reading his blocks, and what he has to do up front. I think he’s a lot more confident and comfortable in doing that this year.”
On where he ranks RB Brian Westbrook among other backs in the league:
“He’s right up there. He has to be right up there. To this day I don’t understand why people don’t give him the duty he deserves. He’s right up there. The weapon that he is, and the way you can utilize him all over the field- lining him up outside the corner sometimes- he still can beat the corner one on one. Not a lot of guys can do that.”
On whether Westbrook is considered one of the leaders on the team:
“Oh yeah. He stepped up last year. That’s what he stepped towards, especially towards the end, you’d hear him be a little more vocal. [He] came off the field to me one time and told me, ‘Dawk, I need the ball back.’ I said, ‘We’re going to do whatever we can to get it back to you.’ So that’s the step he took as far as being a leader.”
On whether Westbrook’s leadership changes the dynamic of McNabb’s leadership role on the team:
“No, I think it takes a lot of pressure off of him [McNabb]. When you have one guy that has to be the athlete on the field or the megaphone in the locker room that’s a lot of drainage. You’re draining him all the time. You have a lot of different leaders who can step up at different times. That one guy who’s always doing it doesn’t have to do it, and now he can concentrate on his play, because [LB Jeremiah] Trotter’s already said something. I don’t need to say nothing, I can just go play. I’ve got to listen to what he said, take from what he said, and go play.”
On how effective Westbrook is as a leader:
“Well, he doesn’t speak a lot. He doesn’t use words just to use words and talk all the time. So, when he says something, it’s something that needs to be heard. Because, lets face it, he is one of the starters on this team. So, when one of the starters talk, who’s had the potential to turn games around at any given time as a punt returner, or wherever he’s at on the field—if he has the ball in his hand, he can turn the game around—so, if you tell an offensive line, ‘Hey, man I need you to hold your block a little longer,’ they’re probably going to try to hold their block a little bit longer, because if they do, they know the result could be that he’s going to break one.”
On what WR Kevin Curtis brings to this team:
“Kevin has been in the shadow of two potential Hall of Fame guys. It’s really hard for him to really have shown what he can do. I think this is an opportunity for him to come out and show what it is that he is able to do. Gameplanning against him, you couldn’t just concentrate on [Rams receivers Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce], because you had this cat in the slot that could split your defense. You can’t just look outside all the time, because if you do, that dude in the slot is going to light you up. So, I do remember that trying to gameplan against him.
