* Shocked or stunned to be in this position now?*
I'm disappointed not shocked. I didn't think there was a team that wasn't capable of beating us. There is nothing shocking about it. it was disappointing we didn't play well enough to win.
* Missed opportunities?*
When you're the number one seed and you lose in the first round it is absolutely a missed opportunity. We had home field advantage throughout. We had two games and we had an easier path than we did last year and to not get there and lose to a division rival at home is a sour feeling.
* How long of an off season is this going to be?*
I don't know. You can ask me that in August. It's disappointing when you have a group of guys that believe in each other. We have a coach that won't let us sulk for too long. This one hurts. I'm sure guys will look at the tape
and try to see what went wrong but you have plenty of time to think about it but as a professional you have to move on.
* Frustrating watching the offense just struggle today?*
They have come through for us all year. We expect a lot of them and they pulled us out of a lot of games. We have faith in them the whole way through. Philly's defense played extremely well. They made some big plays. We didn't make enough defensively. They made some bigger plays than we did defensively. There were a couple of instances where we could have gotten off the field and gave our offense more opportunities and we didn't do that. Finger pointing is the last thing you're going to get out of this team and collectively we didn't play well enough to beat the Philadelphia Eagles.
* Was the third –and-20 play the one that sticks out in your mind?*
There was a lot that sticks out in my mind. That wasn't a good one. Some of the penalties we committed didn't help. McNabb sitting back there and scrambling around and having a lot of time is the kind of stuff we'll remember up front. We take it personally, it's not all about sacks but you at least have to harass them and hit them and I don't think we did enough of that today.
* You had the momentum on your side last year. This year you had the bye. Are you starting to think momentum is more important than rest anymore in this league?*
There's a certain sense of that. The way teams have been losing – when you're used to playing every week and then going off the field could knock some people out of their rhythm. Patriots were the top seed last year and they made it all the way to the Super Bowl. I think the percentages favor the teams that are sitting home. It hasn't been like that recently but nothing has drastically changed in the game of football it's just that teams haven't come out and played well enough to win. I don't blame it on the bye. We have some guys that were hurt that wouldn't have been out there with us. You can't blame it on that. You have to give credit to Philly. They played well last week and they were hot at the whole end of the last season. It wasn't a situation where that one game gave them all the confidence in the world. They played well down the stretch the entire way and they came out and beat us today.
* Is this hard to accept when the stars seemed aligned?*
It's hard for me to except it. You expect to come in and see Coughlin hyping up the next opponent tomorrow. Losing an elimination game – we haven't done that since 2006. It's definitely a different feeling. We had high expectations and high hopes and people had those same hopes of us but we didn't seize the opportunity. They have professional guys and guys that get paid and play hard and I'm sure they want to win the Super Bowl just as bad as we did. We had all the advantages, we had home field and rested guys but we didn't make enough plays today.
* Why has it been so hard to get to McNabb?*
It's a combination of things. Their guys did a good job man for man up front. You have to give them credit. McNabb was a guy that has been playing in that offense for years. He knows when to get rid of the ball and he knows to get rid of it fast enough. They did some things with protection that were obviously successful and we didn't do a good enough job of getting there. It's not like we had ten sacks in every game except when we play the Eagles. We didn't get a lot of sacks down the stretch whatsoever. It's not just the Eagles. We finished up statistically high but we know we didn't get them when we wanted to. We didn't get them in the big games, we didn't get them down the stretch and that is something we need to correct over the offseason. We have some veterans on our d-line and we have Osi coming back who was here supporting us today. Coach Waufle has a lot of pride, the d-line has a lot of pride and we plan on being the best d-line in the league next year.
