Summary of Wade Phillips' press conference today.
We didn't have any big injuries in the game, Jason Witten is sore, he only played 20-something plays. We expect some players back. We're not thinking that just because they're back we will win all the games. We'll work on things we need to, fit in the players coming back and utilize their talents and get a winning streak going. Second half of the season for us, everything is not well just because players are back, but they will help. The answer is everybody doing their part. Lot of pressure on the team, that's when good teams come through.
We thought about bringing in Brooks Bollinger earlier, but we got a turnover, then we fumbled ball the ball right back, it wasn't a turnover by the QB. Then we got a quick turnaround again and we let Brad stay in for the 2-minute period where we thought he was comfortable. Of course in the second half we changed.
The doctors say Tony Romo can throw this week, his finger is healing, once it's healed he should be fine, it's coming along real well. He might throw some this week, maybe not in practice. Minor splint on him this week.
We think getting injured players back, some starters and the QB, everybody thinks that will help. We don't want to think we're great because of that. We got to earn it.
Brooks is the #2 QB now. We brought in Brooks because we didn't have a 3rd QB last year, he was a guy we picked up at the start of the season. We thought Brad could handle the backup spot or we wouldn't have gone that way. We didn't turn the ball over last week, that's what Brad did for us, but it didn't work this week.
In the bye week we'll get our team back in and work on the Redskins and see who is healthy and who we can utilize. Coaches will go over the whole season again, go through the Redskins and devote time to them. This time of year you need some days off, three days off, get some of the aches and pains to go away. Week to week we analyze but we get to see the big picture during the bye week, it's harder to do that during the regular weeks. We talked about some personnel moves, depending on who comes back, if Newman and Romo come back obviously they'll play.
I thought the defense played well for a while. The last drive they made on just runs, that was partly my fault, I tried to come after them some. We tried to make things happen but we ended up making things happen for them but not for us. There were some good things we did, they could have folded but they didn't. We had three turnovers and fours sacks. But I did think we got worn down and that bothered me. The first half the Giants had 15 runs and they only had 45 yards, three yards a carry. But we wore down in the second half, that bothers me, we'll research why that happened. If teams can run the ball it can wear you down and we miss tackles. Our young guys didn't play really well this week, they made some crucial mistakes, the week before they played much better. I'm talking about the secondary in both the run and the pass game. We are playing better against the pass but we still made mistakes.
After the game I was talking to the team and the players, they don't seem disheartened, they know it's a tough task, but they are looking forward to it.
We always look at personnel, and it depends on who comes back. Some of our starting postiton guys were hurting. Some of the backups have done well, others not so well.
I think Romo, Terence Newman and Kyle Kosier will practice this week. Newman will be more limited. I don't know about Felix Jones this week, he ran yesterday with no pain. I think it's a good possibility all four will play.
Anytime you lose a starter like Kyle Kosier it's going to hurt some. To what degree it's hard to say.
We're working on things with Flozell Adams. He's had a few more injuries this year, that's part of the problem. We've had a lot of sacks the last few games, but when Romo was in he wasn't sacked a lot. Some of it is getting rid of the football.
I think there will be some changes with the new players coming back. Whatever changes we need to do we'll do. We're trying to win, part of it is analyzing and then getting the players to do it.
The run defense had a couple of bad fills, we overran some things and we missed some tackles. We blitzed more than normal at the end of the game and it hurt us. We didn't execute the blitzes well enough. The front seven is pretty strong, the problem is once the Giants broke the line they made big gainers. We made some mistakes, gap responsibilities, people not getting off the blocks. (Missing Roy Williams?) Roy was our second leading tackler last year and missed two games. Now people are looking for Roy, earlier it was get him out of there (laughter). We miss him but Keith Davis did fine.
Jerry Jones is strong in his convictions on what we want to do. He and I have the same goals and purpose. We get disheartened some if we don't win but we're committed to having a good year this year and we think we can get there.
Anthony Spencer played outstanding in the game, he was our best defender. He played like he looked this summer and the little he played this year. He played as good as anybody had. We could get all three (Ware, Spencer and Ellis) in together some, but that's for pass situations. It helps us having him in, he makes a lot of plays and he's hard to block. He was harder to block than DeMarcus in the run game this week. I can't say that about everybody on defense.
I thought Brooks hung in well, it was a tough situation and throwing the INT right off the bat. He got hit more than I wanted him to, the first thing is protecting the QB. He did all right considering the amount of time he had working last week, he started getting more comfortable. He completed some passes and got a TD.
(With Brad Johnson as the third QB, who will hold for kicks?) Patrick Crayton is a possibility and we got some other guys who might do it and our punter has done it before. Brooks will start if Romo can't go. Brad is our third QB.
Jason Witten did OK, during the game said he was OK. It was a situation where we didn't want him in late in the game, but he seemed all right He's probably sore today. He's been banged up all year, I have great respect for him playing with pain. I've had players before who wouldn't do that.
Roy Williams is getting integrated more and more , but we need to get him on the field more. He's handled it well, some of the routes are little different from some other teams, but he didn't make any mental mistakes. We got to get our best players the ball, Terrell, Witten and Roy. The situation for Roy without the starting QB is part of it too. He should get more opportunities as we go.
The tackling problem was we tried to tackle Brandon Jacobs too high. We started out the game in the first half well, they barely had over 3-yards per carry. Whether it's mentally trying to do more than we need to do, we tried to make plays instead of just playing positions. They're trying to do more than what they need to do. The inside backers still had 16 tackles. It's one guy or two guys who didn't tackle well enough in the game. On the last drive they weren't extending themselves like they were earlier in the game.