Doug Pederson

Q. What did you make of QB Carson Wentz’s performance tonight? (Bo Wulf)

DOUG PEDERSON: Man, I thought he hung in there. I thought he battled. Faced some adversity down a couple scores there in the fourth quarter and really hung in there. Maybe on the stat sheet, things looked good, but there’s probably a couple throws or decisions he wants back.

But he’s the leader of our team for a reason and you saw that tonight, leading our team down there to get the two scores late in the game.

But overall, hung in there, played tough again tonight.

Q. What’s your anxiety level like watching Carson take those hits, and are you confident he’s going to be able to make the plays despite some of the breakdowns in pass protection? (Dave Zangaro)

DOUG PEDERSON: You don’t want your quarterback to be hit the amount of times he has here in the last couple of weeks, but again we are playing some good fronts, and we have to figure out how to do a better job of protecting him. And then he has to do a better job, too, either throwing the ball away or trying to escape with his legs.

We know there’s going to be a hit a time or two and that’s part of playing quarterback and he’s a tough guy and he’s hanging in there.

Q. Looks like you were clicking early with tempo and then things slowed down until about six minutes left in the game. What do you think kick-started the offense, and what do you think were some of those red zone issues in the middle of the game? (John McMullen)

DOUG PEDERSON: Well, the red zone is something we have to look at. This is the first game where we struggled a little bit in the red zone. Listen, credit the guys. We got down there a few times. It’s one of the things you can’t do when you’re down there is obviously turn the ball over. Can’t have sacks. Can’t have penalties. We had a little bit of all those tonight, yet we were still able to overcome it. We’re going to take a look at it over the weekend and be better there.

Q. After C Jason Kelce’s penalty pushes you back to first and goal from the 18, what was the plan there as far as the play calling and did you want to get it all in one play on the pass to RB Boston Scott? (Zach Berman)

DOUG PEDERSON: Well, I mean, the goal was to ultimately score. We had to score the touchdown, and I believe we still had the two timeouts, so we had plenty of time. Obviously had field position. So the actual down and distance didn’t matter at the time. It was still first down. We were going to use our timeouts when necessary. Our guys overcame it, and Boston finished off that drive with a great throw, great catch. It was a great way to end that drive.

Q. Speaking of overcoming, you guys overcame that fourth down play on the corner fade to TE Hakeem Butler, was he the first read there? Can you describe what went into your thinking on that play? (Jeff McLane)

DOUG PEDERSON: Initially, he was going — he was heading to the wrong side of the field. When he got back over to the right side of the field or the right side of the formation, he was uncovered. When we snapped the ball, the defender had gotten back over there just in enough time to really knock the ball away. He’s a big, athletic guy and we put that play in specifically for him and the Giants made a play.

Q. It looked like for so long there in the second half, your offense was just totally stifled. Then once you were down 11, it sprang to life. What happened there? Did you make some different play calls? What happened to get the offense back in gear? (Les Bowen)

DOUG PEDERSON: We always evaluate between series how a defense is defending, and we make some subtle adjustments and try to put some guys in position. This is all part of game planning and part of in-game adjustments and we were able to do that. We knew once we got down the two scores, we were going to be in two-minute mode, anyway. Our guys just made some plays. We made a deep throw there to [WR] John Hightower that helped us eventually score and made a couple other nice throws. Rich-Rod [TE Richard Rodgers] came up big for us on a scramble play. You’re just going to need some of that stuff when you’re in that situation.

But we were in two-minute mode, anyway, with about six or seven minutes to go in the game, knowing we were down two scores just to get us back in the game.

Q. You had two guys that came back from injuries today that got injured again with new injuries, WR DeSean Jackson, T Lane Johnson, two big parts of your offense. How has the team reacted to so many injuries like that and do you have any update on them? (Nick Fierro)

DOUG PEDERSON: I don’t have any updates right now. Probably get more tomorrow or at least through the weekend with some time off for the players this weekend. It’s really good to get those two guys back. DeSean was active in the game early and tried to continue to get him some touches as the game went on. And then Lane, having Lane back really, really — listen, he was in, he got knocked out for a play or two, came back and played really tough, as well. Both those guys, it was really a shot in the arm for the offense to get those two guys back.

Q. You know in the history of this league, a lot of people judge quarterbacks, sometimes their greatness, on comebacks. What has Carson shown you the last couple weeks, leading you to 34 points in the fourth quarter and maybe taking that step in the pressure moments? (John Clark)

DOUG PEDERSON: Well, it just shows that he’s taken that step in the right direction to be one of the top quarterbacks in this league. And you’re absolutely right, quarterbacks sometimes get measured by fourth-quarter comebacks. I know that’s part of a stat that gets recorded, and he’s done that. The last couple of weeks, we’ve put ourselves in position to really either tie the game a week ago, and of course this week win the game. That’s what it takes. Especially the situation that we are in health-wise as a team, we know these games are going to be probably closer than we would like. But it is good to see your quarterback standing there, go toe-to-toe, take some shots and still lead your team down the field for the win.

Q. K Jake Elliott missed that 29-yard field goal earlier in the game. From your vantage point, was there anything wrong with the mechanics of the whole field goal operation there and did it affect any of your decisions later on in the game? (Chris Franklin)

DOUG PEDERSON: No, there was nothing wrong. Just a little bit of a pull by Jake. It’s uncharacteristic of him, especially at that distance. Still got a lot of confidence in Jake, and I’ll put him back out there in any of those situations again.