Wade Phillips press conference 9/10/08 - Austin, Spencer practice

A paraphrase of the Wade Phillips' press conference today.

Sam Hurd and Kyle Kosier didn’t practice. Miles Austin, Anthony Spencer, and Terence Newman were limited in practice. Marion Barber and Isaiah Stanback were full go. Miles was wearing a brace, moved around good in individual drills, he did some team. He won’t wear a brace if he plays, he looked alright. Both Newman and Spencer are closer to being ready too, but not there yet.

The Eagles played physical football (in second meeting of last year), we had a chance to make plays but we didn’t make them. They did a good job on our running game, we don’t expect that at home. They forced us into situations where they could come after us. They’re always good in that situation and they have another cornerback this year. They have their own defensive scheme, they execute it well and disguise it well. They run the same things every year but they disguise it well.

Against the Eagles blitz, the QB, the backs and WR have blitz pickups on the outside so it’s more of a problem for them than the offensive line. The inside protection is usually set, the others (backs, WR’s) with hot routes or double reads have it tougher. The lineman already have their rules down, but the center has to get them in the right protections.

We felt confident last week in Cory Procter, assignment-wise he had no problems, now with physical battles - he’ll have some of those, he’s not the biggest guy. But why we played him is he’s real smart and knows the protections.

If Austin is back we’ll certainly utilize him. We have a good feeling going into the week that he might play. I think he’ll get to practicing without the brace later in the week. We’ll see, he didn’t have to have it today, part of it was precautionary today. We decided to start him out with it and then work his way out of it this week.

Sam Hurd is still hurt, maybe a week or longer away, he is progressing well. So is Kosier, both are ahead of schedule but not ready this week.

Good to see Isaiah Stanabck play, he made some catches and ran routes the way we want him to. He’s a threat deep even though we didn’t throw it to him deep last game. He’ll do more on special teams as we go along, too.

Marion Barber is fine. Bruised ribs nothing more, he’s a lot better today, he’ll be fine for the game.

We felt Felix Jones was in that Westbrook-mold; versatile, can catch out of the backfield, you can split him out, he can run with the ball, has explosiveness. If we found someone like Westbrook, that would be something.

We liked DeSean Jackson’s abilities before the draft and he’s proven so far that what we liked, and what they liked, is he can do a lot of things. Instant offense on kickoffs and on offense. The QB made big play receivers out of all their WR’s last week. McNabb can get it to any of them. Jackson is a good WR, but part of it is the QB.