Brian Westbrook was asked about his tremendous performance last week against the Jets and the team problems in the red zone. The news conference finished with BWest talking about the payback of the Eagles $3 million dollar overpayment.
RB Brian Westbrook Press Conference
10-17-07
On whether he makes decisions about when to initiate contact when he has the ball:
“Just positioning. My game is a game of angles, and trying to see where a defensive player is and how his body position is. If he is off balance and not able to make a play, then I’ll give him a shot here or there. I try to pick my spots as best I can.”
On whether he has gotten better at that over the years:
“I try to get better at it. It’s tough, because you have a lot of good players in the NFL. Your spots are rare. It’s hard to find those spots. When you do have an opportunity to run somebody over, or give them a good shot, you try to take advantage of it.”
On whether it’s fun to run a defender over:
“Oh, yeah. It’s always a good opportunity to try to run a defender over. Especially a linebacker, or safety, or somebody who is supposed to be able to come up and make a big hit on you.”
On whether he thinks people don’t expect him to try to run them over:
“I think a lot of guys have to respect my speed, so they get into a position where they’re trying to catch me. If I ever slow down and allow them to catch up, and they’re in a bad position to make a good form tackle, then you’re able to take advantage of their positioning a little bit.”
On how he feels this week:
“I feel pretty good.”
On whether he was concerned about how he was going to feel in the game last week:
“I was concerned, only in the aspect of contact. You can’t really simulate game speed, as far as the players moving around, as well as the contact in practice. I was able to react pretty well to it and I had a pretty decent game.”
On whether he would like to be more involved in the red zone offense:
“I think a lot of times we get the ball down there through the run, and we have to continue to do that. We can’t just abandon the running game once we get down there. When I look at some of the things we’ve done, we just haven’t been consistent. I think we’ve moved the ball on some defenses and things get tighter down there, but we have to continue to have the threat of the run, as well as the pass.”
On whether he thinks they can be effective running the ball in the red zone:
“I think we have the guys up front that can make the plays so that we could run the ball.”
On whether he feels like other teams focus on him when the offense is in the red zone:
“I think the one thing that they did [last week], they used a mugger, they used a MIKE linebacker to spy on the screens. With the defensive ends noticing the running backs a lot more, it’s tough to get out on the screens, because they begin to hold you and not allow you to get out on the screen, also with the MIKE over top. So, it’s tough when a team is really paying attention to the screen, which allows us to have other things open up.”
On whether he thinks that is happening more than ever:
“Teams that don’t play the screen, you score touchdowns on them down there. Teams like the Jets, they played it pretty well. We have to figure out something else to do down there.”
On whether he thinks the playcalling is representative of a team with a strong rushing attack:
“I don’t call the plays. We have some opportunities down there, so we have to take advantage of those opportunities.”
On whether it will be harder to run against the Bears defense after the success Vikings RB Adrian Peterson had against them last week:
“When I saw that game and saw the things that Adrian was able to do, first I said he’s a good running back and he’s a guy who really got it done last week. It makes it tougher on us, because this week that’s going to be one of their main focuses—trying to stop the run and trying to prevent a running back from having those long runs like he had last game. Our main goal is to try to help us to get those same opportunities that he had last week.”
On what he sees from QB Donovan McNabb as the season goes on:
“He’s getting better every week. I think everybody kind of knew he was going to continue to get better. He [didn’t start] as fast as he wanted to, but he’s going to continue to get better every week, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from him. He’s a player who worked hard to get back to the point where he is, and he’s going to continue to progress as the year goes on.”
On whether it’s surprising to see McNabb get chased down and tackled by a defensive lineman:
“That’s one of those situations where he is coming off of an injury, so he’s not back to his full speed yet. Like I said, he’s going to continue to get his speed back and his feet underneath him as the season goes on.”
On how long it took him to come back after his knee injury:
“It takes about a year to get all the way back.”
On whether he feels added pressure to be out there every week because of how important he is to the offense:
“I put pressure on myself to be out there every week. I want to play; that’s my job, to go out there and play football. I want to help this team win games. I put pressure on myself to try to go out there and compete and help this team win football games. I know that with all our starters, not just me, [LT William Thomas], [TE] L.J. [Smith] and other guys that have been injured, with all of us in there, we’ll definitely have some success.”
On what has been decided in regards to his money situation:
“Nothing has been decided.”
On whether it’s tough for him to play from week to week without getting a paycheck:
“It would be the same thing as if you guys went out and wrote papers or whatever, and didn’t get a paycheck. You would be disappointed. It’s a situation that my agent and I are trying to get resolved. It hasn’t gotten resolved yet. By this time, I thought it would have been resolved.”
