Dallas Cowboys 37, Philadelphia Eagles 17
Q. Right now, what's your disappointment level, not just in losing that game, but also being eliminated from playoff contention?
DOUG PEDERSON: I think my disappointment is just how everything's gone, you know, obviously this season. It's not what we expected to start the year and just again, tonight it was just obvious, the mistakes, the penalties and just lack of execution and all just sort of piled up on us during the game today and just didn't overcome it. That, to me, has been the disappointment in myself and obviously the year.
Q. How much did this game, a lot of penalties on offense, protection issues, emphasize what you've been saying all season; that it's not just the play calling and the quarterback, but rather, it's a collective problem across the board.
DOUG PEDERSON: I mean, you know, obviously it's difficult when you have those issues. Especially the situation we're in with the amount of injury that has taken place with this football team, you just can't make those mistakes and expect to win games. You're just not there yet to overcome a lot of the things.
You know, it's frustrating because it's never about one guy and football takes all 11 offensively and defensively and of course on special teams to get the job done. And yeah, you just can't -- it's hard. It makes it a lot more difficult than it needs to be.
Q. I wanted to ask you about some of those penalties. You had six false starts in the 15th game of the season. Even with the juggling of the offensive line, is there a cadence problem there that they are having trouble with? How does that happen?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, some of it's the different cadence, the different -- getting used to Jalen's voice and it's something that we've coached him up to do better at is obviously be louder. First time, obviously, the crowd noise, but that wasn't a factor today. Just timing and execution of it and it's something that it can't happen. You know, you might get one every couple of weeks, but to have as many as we did today, just, you know, it can't happen.
Q. Why did you go for it on fourth and 15 when just a drive earlier you passed up opportunities on fourth and three and fourth and eight?
DOUG PEDERSON: Was the fourth and three the delay game?
Q. Yes.
DOUG PEDERSON: The fourth and three, I had to burn a timeout because we had 12 on the field earlier in the game there in the third and I didn't want to burn another time-out in that situation that backed us out and took us out that have situation.
The other ones, we had to make something happen. We were looking to create and get a play to get us back into this football game, so I elected to do that.
Q. The demarkation line in this game seemed to be when Fletcher came out, I think it was 14-3, and then kind of the wheels came off. Obviously you had the injuries on the back end. Did not getting that type of interior rush from Fletcher, do you think that was a big impact?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I think Fletcher obviously is a big, big part of the D-Line. You know and then we didn't have Josh Sweat. We didn't have Derek Barnett, either, up there, and those are mainstays in that defensive line, to be able to put pressure on quarterbacks. And again, it just goes to show you that it's tough in this business to play with that many new faces, so to speak, on one side of the ball.
It just magnifies itself, and you know, it happened to us today.
Q. What did you make of Jalen Hurts's performance, pretty strong first half it looked like and then cooled off in the second. What was behind that?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, you know, first half came out, played really well. Made some nice throws. Able to run the ball there. You know, the second half, it changed a little bit defensively on him. He was kind of battling through a little lower body tightness, as well, as the game went on. I do believe it affected him a little bit throwing the ball late in the game. But he's a battler and he's a warrior and he hung in there till the end.
Again it's not about the one guy. It's not about him. It's about the entire unit. We weren't good enough today, coaches or players to, win the game.
Q. When a player is sticking out and struggling like Matt Pryor with penalties or Michael Duckett with coverage, what's it like on the sideline before you make a change and move to somebody else?
DOUG PEDERSON: The first thing you is just try to coach the player. Try to get him to calm down. Try to just figure out what he's seeing and get him to relax and don't let the game be quite so fast. I mean, it just happens with young players. The game so fast, and being able to slow it down and talk him through some things, and you try to coach him up and get him prepared and then if that doesn't work, you try to make some changes with personnel. Maybe you saw Slay come over there and he tried to do some different things. You know, same way offensively, and you just try to coach the guys up and get them to slow the game down. You heard that before with young players how fast this game can be, and that's the first thing we've got to do as coaches is try to get it to slow down for them.
Q. Jackson had the 81-yard catch midway through the first quarter. What did you see from him on that and also, like he was not targeted again the rest of the game, I believe, what was going on there?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, you know, obviously DeSean is an electric player, explosive player and that was obviously a designed shot play. Again, well executed for the touchdown.
You know, I believe he got sore as the game went on. His injury got sore and sorer, and so we had to be careful there. He just lost a little bit of that explosiveness as the game wore on so we had to kind of keep him out as the game went.
Q. You said before in looking back on the season that you're disappointed in yourself. What do you think you could have done differently over the course of this season?
DOUG PEDERSON: I mean, you know, you look at decisions. You look at opportunities to put the team in better situations; all things that I will evaluate when I look back on the year. You know, I'm part of the solution moving forward, too, and I've got to look at myself and as the leader of the football team and standing up front of the guys and they are disappointed obviously. We are all disappointed. I can do my part to try to help them and put them in situations to be -- to be better. You know, that's where I -- that's where I'm hard on myself.
Q. The Eagles are the only team in the division returning it's coaching staff and as it turned out, the first team in the division to be eliminated. Is that an advantage that's sort of gone to waste?
DOUG PEDERSON: You know, listen, we had a lot of expectations going into the year. And I think key positions on the staff were back and had some moving parts on offense, obviously. You know, then things began to sort of slowly unravel with the injuries and different things of that nature, all things that you know, as a sport, are out of your control.
What's unfortunate is where we are and we didn't make the most of our opportunities when we had them.
Q. You said, "I'm part of the solution, too." I know you don't make big evaluations 15 minutes after the game but because you said that, I wanted to ask you about it. What is the solution for fixing a 4-win team and why do you believe you're a big part of it?
DOUG PEDERSON: Well, as the leader of the team, it starts with me and we've got one more opportunity this next weekend against Washington at home, and you try to look forward to that opportunity. And then you get a chance to really evaluate and look at my performance and how well or did I lead the team.
Look, if I don't, if I don't look at myself in the mirror, it's hard for me to correct anybody else. That's what I mean when I say, you know, it starts with me, because I've got to look at myself in the mirror and make sure that I'm doing everything that I can in my power, whether it be play calls, decision-making in game plan, personnel, in and out of the football game, whatever it might be, to help our team win.
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