Wade Phillips press conference 9/10/07

Wade intro: Injury news, Jason Ferguson is out for season, that’s bad news. Newman and Ellis should be closer to coming back, maybe get them back this week. Gave out some game balls today, after watching tape. One to Jacques Reeves, he had a big interception, he played pretty well, 3 PB’s, 6 tackles, and an INT. Offensive line played outstanding, Andre Gurode was the most outstanding, he had a lot of knockdowns and was very physical. His power and strength showed up, graded out the best, so we gave him one fore the whole o-line.  Of course Romo, (much praise for Romo). Jason Witten got a game ball besides his stats, he also blocked outstanding, he was good on the DE’s, which helped the running game and that was strong. And Terrell, told him in the meeting we tried in the first half to get him some balls, but he came in at halftime and had a good attitude, he was urging everybody on, I thought that was special. He thought of team first, made 3 outstanding catches and 2 TD’s. Game ball to him.

Most important thing was to win, defensively we need some work on things we didn’t do well.

Defensive coach, defense background?
I’m an offensive coach now. (laughter) As head coach, I worry about whichever unit needs it. They will get better; we were limited in what we could do, although Jacques did a pretty good job. Eli looked pretty good. We didn’t go man-to-man a lot, we couldn’t double #17. We also gave up 3 or 4 third-down plays.

Surprised about the defense?
You never know game to game, in some matchup things click for you. I worry about getting ahead and the other team will throw it 44 times. Our pass defense gave up too many yards, we got to work on the rush, if you get ahead of a team they will pass.

Focus on defense now?
The players will do that, you would be surprised about the little things that we can do to get better. We made mental mistakes, assignment mistakes and we pride ourselves on that. They had big plays, we shouldn’t do that. They’ll bounce back.

Stop the run with Fergie out?
Ratliff played pretty well. Not as big as Fergie, but he’s active, played well in there for us. That’s what we have, so we’ll play with it, we’ll work things that are good for him at nose, he didn’t hurt us with him in there. We’ll stunt him more, be more active rather than just shade like Fergie. May have to move the MLB’s more, they both can do that.

Remi Ayodele?
I don’t know, we don’t know yet. A possibility. (Kind of gave it away that they are in contact).

More pressure from the d-line?
We got lots of hits, the timing of the passes - Eli knows when people are coming – he got rid of the ball. Guys should have been in the area, if they had for another half-second in coverage, we would have got to Eli more. We beat people one on one, we had people free, I’m more discouraged by the mental mistakes in zone. A guy was supposed to drop into coverage on the curl but he rushed and they hit the curl for 14 yards. We may simplify things.

Roy in coverage?
Don’t want to go into specifics. You look and may think a guy was wrong, but you don’t know. The coverage wasn’t good enough, we didn’t play zone well enough. We’d play a lot more man if Newman was back there. Jacques wasn’t at the point to do that, with Newman you can.  Hit us 60 yards on a zone early in the game and that put us back on our heels. But they fought hard.

How do you know when the young kids are ready?
They’re the guys we have to play with. I thought Spencer came on at the last part of the game. The last quarter and a half he played real well. Hit the QB twice, sacked him on two-point play, although it doesn’t count as a sack. That was a good play, kept them two scores behind.

Did you use Roy as you envisioned?
Early they couldn’t run the ball, they powered a few runs on us a little bit, but once they got behind, they hit us with some runs when we were in pass defense and we overran the play. The run defense with Roy gave them a hard time. But we stopped them on 4th down when we were down 6-3, stopped them and made them punt, then got an INT and went ahead 10-3. Early in the game we played well.

Newman Ellis on Weds.?
I don’t know, they’re day-to-day. (laughter)

Back to the young kids, recognizing whether they’re ready, specifically Ratliff and Reeves?
It’s usually techniques that they need to do better. Those guys are gifted. Ratliff can run, he’s quick, he uses a lot of technique now. We’ll utilize what he does best. Same with Jacques, although didn’t move his feet on some plays like we want.

How did Roy play?
Not going to comment that a guy played bad or whatever. I’ve got their back, not right to go into it when you win. Don’t dwell on the negatives, we are going to dwell on them, but not out there for the public.

Burnett?
Played on kickoff coverage, should be ready to play some more this week.

Witten?
If they double the outside guy, Witten is tough to cover. If you run well like we did, play-action then becomes a factor. We wanted to get him the ball, do certain things to get him open. (had a little audio trouble at this point).

Hurd and Crayton?
I like that one where Hurd caught it and ran 51-yards. It was on a blitz, it was a site adjustment. Romo recognized it and Hurd recognized it. Everybody practices but some don’t get as many reps, so when they recognize things it shows they are focused. We hit another site adjustment to Patrick near the goal line, and one to Witten. The QB did a good job picking them up. You got to do that if they come after you.

Garret play-calling?
Once your clicking you can’t back off, go ahead and call the game. Jason did a good job, Tony helped him on running plays, protections, but Jason did a great job. The players made the 45 points, but the coaches are a part of it, setting it all up and having the players implement it. He asks me every once in a while about things, but we never got so far ahead to have the game won, so we kept with the game plan.

MB3 runs angry?
He’s angry at the other team. Explosive runner, both backs had 65 yards and both blocked well. Especially JJ, he had to pick up LB’s a couple of times. Both were effective and made plays, and the 4th and 1 was a big play. He helped me out there.

Get JJ more to the edge?
He got one long run out there, we’d like more but we had big plays in the passing game.

The 4th and 1 decision?
Pride myself in making the decision beforehand and not calling a timeout. Felt like we are strong on the right side and wanted to establish that we can make short yardage. Back the team to a point, we all felt like we could make it, a FG would have been a let down to them. Thought about it before the game. We have certain plays that Jason calls in those situations. Sometimes they can change during game, but that was the play we wanted to run in this situation. I hate it when coaches call timeout to decide.

Any idea on Terry Glenn’s decision?
No.