Wade Phillips press conference 9/16/08

Paraphrase of Wade Phillips' press conference today.

Roy Williams broken arm, not out for season. Jason Witten sprained shoulder but was able to play. We showed a lot of heart, no panic even when bad things happened to us. Some of them were our own fault but our guys came back, and that starts with the QB on offense. Defensively, the first half didn't play well, we also got a bad interference call to set-up a TD after the turnover. In the second half we had 188 yards on offense on five possessions and we scored three times. They had the ball twice at the end, I've seen teams already this year come back on teams at the end, they had three possessions, they fumbled then we stopped them twice. Our nickel defense at the end of the game made big plays, they made the difference.

I thought the interior of the o-line played the best, we'd like to run it more, but they took that away, stacking the line, and they got hurt with the pass, we had 300 yards passing and no sacks. Witten went out with injury and came back, shows his heart. He wasn't injured, just banged up, he came back and played. Terrell Owens had two more catches for TD, that makes him second all time. The first one excited everybody, great play, he got five yards behind secondary. Like to have him make more plays in the second half, we need to get the ball more to him. Romo exemplifies tough-mindedness of team. Bad things happen and a lot of guys go in the tank, it bothered him but he went on to the next play, the team believed in him. Marion Barber, all he does is make touchdowns. He had a tough time in the run in the first half, they stacked up the line, but he kept going. A one yard run for a TD counts and the last one counted. Nick Folk, besides being accurate, he just seems to make clutch FG's. Right before the half, 50 something-yarder and that changed the momentum. It made the score close enough for us to go ahead on a TD, that made a difference. Kevin Burnett played outstanding in sub-packages and on special teams. Best coverage-wise on our special teams. He played outstanding in sub-packages.  Felix Jones had 247 yards on kick returns, they talk about DeSean Jackson on returns for them, but certainly Felix's KO return was electrifying. It even got me jogging. To clear things up, I was going to have him as KO returner all along. (said in jest, laughter). We have good blocking on our KO return unit.

Jay Ratliff had an outstanding game. Good on the run, we held Westbrook down overall, in the run and pass, Jay was important part of that. He got a sack, tackles for losses. The two outside backers were key, although they blocked with 7 or 8 guys some of the time. It threw us off in the first half that they protected with so many guys and tried to throw long. We matched up better in the second half, our guys kept going, our guys did a better job of doing what we call ‘plaster', when the QB scrambles we plaster the WR's and they have no one to throw to. He then has to run or we can get a sack. We did a good job of plastering the WR's in second half. Bradie and Zach were solid, the front seven played well. We did get some pressure, when they spread it out at the end we had pressure.

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This rookie class is a strong group, Felix, Bennett, Jenkins, and last week Choice and Scandrick, this is a strong group.

Witten will play this week. He came back and played in this game. Our trainers think he'll play.

Courtney Brown has been inactive, so we'll use him (at backup FS). Pat Watkins played SS in this game and he will do that. Ken Hamlin is a natural FS. I don't think its Pat natural position at FS. We moved him to SS some in preseason. We worked Brown at FS to backup Hamlin. Thought Pat could be a good SS, that's what he'll do.

Terence Newman did OK, he was rusty, he knew his assignments, and he got better as the game went along, he played 34 plays. We played better as we went along.

It wasn't Roy's responsibility to play that ball (on the long pass to DeSean Jackson). Not going into who did or didn't do what.

They saw the Jackson play upstairs and I saw it on the field, especially when Pac went back for the ball. We didn't pick it up, but the ball was dead because of an inadvertent whistle. They signaled TD. I felt like I had to challenge, to stop the TD. But they got it anyway on the next play. Pac started to go back but they signaled TD. Even if he picked it up, we still wouldn't get it.

Anthony Spencer helped some, kept Greg fresh for the end of the game. He wasn't outstanding like in training camp, but like Newman, playing helped him. It helps to have three, would like to rotate more and get Ware a break too.

We need to clean up the facemask penalties. We had holding penalties, they didn't but I thought they held quite a bit.

We go over adjustments at halftime, what we need to get done, It's more analytical, not emotional. They were protecting with more people and throwing deep, we took that away in the second half. He threw more dump downs, he still had to scramble, threw one underhand. 115 yards offense in the second half isn't a whole lot.

Aaron Rodgers scrambles around more than Favre, made some plays that way, we need to be more aware of that. We did sack him some. We'll go more on this year's film for Green Bay, certain things, formations, WR's that are particular to Rodgers. He's played really well, thrown to a lot of different WR's.

Mike Jenkins had 23 plays in the game, he played well, that play he made on the long ball showed his outstanding athletic ability. They ran a hook and lateral at the end, his job was to stay outside and not let them make 17 yards, and he was there in position. That was good to see, he tackles well, good job on last play.

Ken Hamlin does the communication for us, that's what he does, he tells everybody what's coming up. He'll tell Pat what to look for. Watkins is a good tackler, good cover man, he has skills in one-on-one coverage, he's and aggressive guy, so we think SS suits him more. We can utilize his coverage skills, Dawkins and Roy are more bangers, so you try to isolate them in coverage, it helps if he can cover.

Sam Hurd and Kyle Kosier are closer but I don't know about practicing this week.