Philadelphia Eagles 22, New York Giants 21
Q. What did you make of Carson's performance tonight?
DOUG PEDERSON: Man, I thought he hung in there. I thought he battled. Faced some adversity down a couple scores there in the fourth quarter and really hung in there. It wasn't -- maybe on the sheet things looked good, but there's probably a couple throws or decisions he wants back.
But he's the leader of our team for a reason and you saw that to be the, leading our team down there to get that -- the two scores late in the game.
But overall, hung in there, played tough again tonight.
Q. What's your anxiety level like watching Carson take those hits, and are you confident he's going to be able to make the plays despite some of the breakdowns in pass protection?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, you know, you don't want your quarterback to be hit the amount of times he has here in the last couple of weeks but again we are playing some good fronts, and you know we have to figure out how to do a better job of protecting him. And then he has to do a better job, too, either throwing the ball away or trying to escape with his legs.
You know, we know there's going to be a hit a time or two and that's part of playing quarterback and he's a tough guy and he's hanging in there.
Q. Looks like you were clicking early with tempo and then things slowed down until about six minutes left in the game. What do you think kick-started the offense, and what do you think were some of those red zone issues in the middle of the game?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, the red zone is something we have to look at. This is the first game where we struggled a little bit in the red zone. Listen, credit to the guys. We got down there a few times and it's one of the things you can't do when you're down there is obviously turn the ball over. Can't have sacks. Can't have penalties and we had a little bit of all those tonight. Yeah, we were still able to overcome it. We're going to take a look at turnover the weekend and be better there.
Q. After Jason Kelce's penalty pushes you back to first and goal from the 18, what was the plan there as far as calling and did you want to get it all in one play?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I mean, the goal was to ultimately score. We had to score the touchdown, and I believe we still had the two timeouts, so we had plenty of time, and you know, obviously had field position. So the actual down and distance didn't matter at the time. It was still first down. We were going to use our timeouts when necessary and our guys overcame it, and Boston finished off that drive with a great throw, great catch. It was a great way to end that drive.
Q. Speaking of overcoming, you guys overcame that fourth down play on the corner fade to Butler, was he the first read there? Can you describe what went into your thinking on that play?
DOUG PEDERSON: Initially, he was going -- he was heading to the wrong side of the field. When he got back over to the right side of the field or the right side of the formation, he was uncovered. When we snapped the ball, the defender had gotten back over there just in enough time to really knock the ball away. He's a big, athletic guy and we put that play in specifically for him and Giants made a play.
Q. It looked like for so long there in the second half, your offense was just totally stifled, and then once you were down 11 -- it spring to life. What happened there? Did you make some different play calls? What happened to get the offense back in gear?
DOUG PEDERSON: I mean, you know, we always evaluate between series how a defense is defending, and we made some subtle adjustments and tried to put some guys in position. This is all part of game planning and part of in-game adjustments and we were able to do that. We knew once we got down the two scores, we were going to be in two-minute mode, anyway. Our guys just made some plays. We made a deep throw there to John Hightower that helped us match the score and made a couple other nice throws. Rich-Rod came up big for us on a scramble play. You're just going to need some of that stuff when you're in that situation.
But we were in two-minute mode, anyway, with a W about six or seven minutes to go in the game, knowing we were down two scores just to get us back in the game.
Q. You had two guys that came back from injuries today, DeSean, Lane Johnson, two big parts of your offense. How has the team reacted to so many injuries like that and do you have any update on them?
DOUG PEDERSON: I don't have any updates right now. Probably get more tomorrow or at least through the weekend with some time off for the players this weekend. You know, it's really good to get those two guys back and DeSean was active in the game early and you know, tried to continue to get him some touches as the game went on. And then Lane, having Lane back really, really -- listen, he was in, he got knocked out for a play or two, came back and played really tough, as well. So both those guys, it was really a shot in the arm for the offense to get those two guys back.
Q. You know in the history of this league, people judge quarterback greatness on comebacks. What has Carson showed you the last couple weeks, leading you to 35 points in the fourth quarter and maybe taken that step in the pressure moments?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, it just shows that he's taken that step in the right direction to be one of the top quarterbacks in this league and you're absolutely right. Quarterbacks sometimes get measured by fourth quarter comebacks. I know that's part a stat that gets recorded, and he's done that. The last couple of weeks, we've put ourselves in position to really either tie the game a week ago, or of course this week win the game. That's what it takes. Especially the situation that we are health-wise as a team, we know these games are going to be probably closer than we would like. But it is good to see your quarterback standing there, go toe-to-toe, take some shots and still lead your team down the field for the win.
Q. Jake Elliott missed that 29-yard field goal earlier in the game, from your vantage point, was there anything wrong with the mechanics of the whole field goal operation there and did it affect any of your decisions later on in the game?
DOUG PEDERSON: No, there was nothing wrong. You know, just a little bit of a pull by Jake. It's uncharacteristic of him, especially that distance. Still got a lot of confidence in Jake and I'll put him back out there in any of those situations again.
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