Q: Did Tuck practice?

A: No

Q: Is he making any progress?

A:* *I haven't talked to anybody today yet.

* *

Q: Did you expect him to practice?

A: No. Hopefully he can do something tomorrow maybe but we will see.

* *

Re: assessment of special teams play this year?

A: I think you can go by the fact that we are playing hard. We have a lot of young guys involved but certainly our return game is not what you want it to be by the numbers. Will Blackmon gave us something the other night and I was glad to see that. We cover well and we do a good job of that and Lawrence Tynes had six of seven touchbacks the other night. The punter did a nice job with his almost plus five or ten punts and downing the ball inside the 10. The only one that the returner handled, he had a ten-yard gain but we made a nice tackle.

* *

Q: Is Lawrence doing a better job this year?

A: You saw what he did from the 20, he kicked the ball to the five. He is strong and the ball has responded.

Q: What do you need to see from your defense this week?

A: We always start with stopping the run. The last time we played them the first game of the season we held them to 74 yards rushing and they did a nice job rushing the other day against New England. They threw the ball well against us the first time. We have to have a combined effort and a good solid effort and stop the big plays. We always start with stopping the run. 

* *

Q: Do you expect to have Kenny Phillips back?

A: I do.

* *

Q: How much has having Ahmad Bradshaw back helped Brandon Jacobs?

A: I am sure that has had a positive effect on Brandon but Brandon has played well when Ahmad was not available as well.

* *

Q: Do you still hope to get balance on offense?

A: We rushed the ball 31 times the other night and we did have a lot of snaps. In a normal game that would have provided that. The Redskins had 34 runs and 33 passes. We did have a lot more passes but we did have the ball more. We are always going to talk about balance and be in a situation attempting to get that. I think the last five minutes of the game demanded that we approach it a different way.

* *

Q: With Brandon having the hot hand, do you go with him over Ahmad?

A: We will continue to mix it up.

* *

Q: What kind of progress has Osi made?

A: We thought he was but evidently he is not going to make it this week.  

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