Doug Pederson
**
On gauging the offense's readiness for the regular season:** "You definitely want to see execution. You want to see the Christmas on the field. You want to see the ability of just moving the football down the field and guys coming together that way."
On his assessment of the team's readiness right now: "You look at the film and I know coach (Reid) has said it [and] I'm going to say it again. It's close. It looks good. The Carolina game [and] the other night against Minnesota, we had some really nice drives with that first unit. It's unfortunate that the penalties [and] the turnovers [happened]. They're going to kill you in any game you're in and particularly in the regular season. But, you can't have it in the preseason anyway. But the things we're doing are right on point and the guys are getting better and they're peaking for that first game."
On the turnovers against Minnesota from Alex Smith: "Well Alex will tell you ultimately as a quarterback, and I've been there, that you take the blame. You're the one throwing the football so you take responsibility for that. Some of it's timing. Some of it's just his decision-making and when he chose to throw the football. It's something that you get out of your way, out of your system now and early in preseason. He'll learn from it. He has watched the film from the game and it's just a matter of you just can't make those mistakes in critical times, particularly in the red zone."
On what positives he takes away from poor red zone play: "The fact that you got down there, number one. You put together a couple of good drives to get there two weeks in a row. The guys understand that in order to score touchdowns in the National Football League, you can't turn the football over, you can't have penalties and you can't have sacks in the red zone, bottom line. They understand that and they'll learn from that."
* *
Bob Sutton
**
On what he looks for to know the defense is ready for the regular season:** "I think it's an accumulative thing. The games are obviously important to judge but I think you judge practice and where you're at because we actually get a lot more reps in practice than we do in a game, particularly right now in the preseason. So, a lot of it for us as coaches is 'How are we improving at practice?' And every coach, each position group and within that, individual, you're trying to say 'Hey, is he getting a little bit better at this?' or 'Are we getting better adjusting to this formation or this defense?' or whatever it is. So, I think it's an accumulative thing."
On his assessment so far: "I think we made progress over the three weeks. I think we've played with more energy each week that we've gone out there on defense, which is a big part of it and it's really attributed to some of those veteran guys who really, when they're going full throttle, then it's going to bring everybody else along with them. The other night I think Tamba (Hali) out there did a really good job. Justin Houston. I'm just talking creating energy and talking to guys like that. DJ (Derrick Johnson), all those guys. So I think that to me was a positive thing. We didn't play well on the first drive. We said 'Hey. We got to settle this thing down, get back on track right here, get it fixed and go forward.' I thought they did a nice job of that."
On knowing the mainstays like LB Tamba Hali look ready to go:"I thought they did a good job. I thought Allen Bailey stepped up and did a good job. Jaye Howard came through. Dontari (Poe). Those are kind of the things we've been watching over the last ten days. It's 'OK, hey. We're finally inching forward to where we want to be and that's what this is about.' Today's practice is a real important practice for us to get zeroed in and take advantage of this day right here."
* *
**Dave Toub
**
On the special teams work against Minnesota: "I thought it was solid all the way up to one play. I mean we had one bad play and unfortunately on special teams, a lot of times you don't get a lot of plays and if you have one bad one it kind of stands out. So, it's kind of sticking with us right now until we get in there and watch the tape and hash over what exactly happened and get it cleaned up."
On Knile Davis making a tackle to save a touchdown after missing initially: "He had great effort getting down the field and unfortunately didn't make a play at the point, but his effort to keep the guy out of the end zone, that's the kind of effort we want from everybody every down. That was a great example of how hard a guy could play."
