Here’s what Dan Quinn had to say on Wednesday

On Desmond Trufant’s status:

“Yeah, the good news is for us from the second opinion everything went well. We’re going to list him as day-to-day now and then as we get closer to the end of the week on Thursday or Friday really if he can participate some there, but we hope he’ll be back sooner than later.”

On the Eagles offense:

“Hard to say you struggle when you throw for 340, I agree. You know what really showed the competitor he is? They had some turnovers early in the game and he didn’t back off. I think it might have been in the first two series where he had some interceptions and then he came right back and had some huge plays to get him right back in it and battling for it all the way there at the end. In our league, it comes right down to the end. In their game, it came down to that as well. Generally, you can see their doing an excellent job in the pocket and outside the pocket. They’ve given the whole compliment of the offense. That’s usually what you look for, alright, for a quarterback can he handle the whole thing? That’s certainly the case there after half a season in you can tell he’s feeling the familiarity, the routes, and the concepts. I’ve been impressed by his athleticism. I wouldn’t say he’s a quarterback that is going to be a run first option but he’s certainly athletic and they can do some of the quarterback gun runs that make him an extra player to defend. We’ve been impressed so far. We thought toughness wise he looks good, he’s not trying to slide, he was trying to run it and be aggressive like a lot of young quarterbacks do and he didn’t back off in any of the challenges I’ve seen.”

On whether he has a greater appreciate for Jim Schwartz and the schemes that he devises:

“Yeah it’s a completely different scheme and the way their utilizing the players. I think that certainly goes with Connor Barwin and Brandon Graham on the outside. Edge setting defensive ends have been for sure a hallmark of his defenses for years. The way they penetrate the guys inside and the four down linemen, that’s what kind of leads the way in being disruptive. I just thought their whole group, the linebackers are extremely square to the line, very good tacklers, and have the speed to match up with people. I thought really the safeties jumped out too, so from a defensive line point very good edge setters, great in penetration, and then right down the middle of that thing really, really good play from the linebackers. There’s very few yards after when the contact happens, that’s a real good sign of good tackling club.”

On whether he studied Carson Wentz much in the draft and what he saw if he did:

“The first time I saw him was at the senior bowl. At the first stage, he had, of course he played in a great program at North Dakota State and the success they’ve had, but that was kind of the first test and he looked like a really good player right on the very first day I was there. The ball jumped out of his hand and you saw the athleticism. I think his size really jumped out, I said, ‘man, that’s a big cat.’ So I’d say that was my first impression that right off the bat when the competition was ramped up and in front of everybody he looked like he was right in his element. That was the first sign and I thought this guy probably has something that’s real strong in there. Then as we went through the evaluations, I didn’t do a lot of studying on him in terms of the quarterback, it wasn’t one of the focuses that we had but when we did go through the cut-ups on him he just looked like he was going to be somebody that was going to be able to handle it pretty early on and especially my experience watching him at the senior bowl under center and doing all the stuff in a pro-style offense he was able to do.”

On where Keanu Neal has grown the most as a player and as a person:

“I’d say the first thing that jumped out when you watched him as a player as a young kid coming up was the physicality that he played with and you knew he had a real style about how he wanted to play football. Then as you followed his career as a Gator, he embodied that style and the toughness and the tackling. When I got to know him through the draft process and then being around him every day here, that’s when the work ethic totally showed in terms of how badly he wants to go and put himself through things to get right. That’s the practice and preparation. Those are a few of the things that jumped out. The toughness has been there probably since he was born. It certainly showed up all the way through his career from high school to college and now in the NFL. That part of his game, he’s really clear about the ball player that he wants to be. What doesn’t go seen is the amount of work that he wants to put in off the field to be really good. He’s earned the respect of a lot of people in a short time by that work ethic.”

On Doug Pedersen talking about how comfortable Matt Ryan looks and letting the game come to him:

“Doug’s probably a good one to comment on that with his quarterback background. Like a number of guys on our team and it’s one of things we talked about in our meeting today is, have you improved, whether it was from the beginning of the year to now? Matt was somebody that we asked, Alex Mack was somebody, Vic Beasley was, and Grady Jarrett was, and why did that happen? I think it’s a lot due to the deliberate practice that Matt applies himself to whether it’s a certain route he wants to throw or the timing with the receiver, it’s the extra work that goes in that kind of goes unseen but I think for sure reps in a system totally helps and he’s put the work in with the extra reps to make sure he’s really playing at a high level.”

On what he attributes to the defensive lines success:

“For us, that improvement at the defensive line is one that we’re continuing to work on as hard as we can. We talk about affecting the quarterback, is it line stunts? Is it our individual technique? We attribute a lot of it to those guys working together as a group and that coordination of a pass rush game plan, pass rush stunt, and the relentless attitude you have to have to be really good at it. Adrian Clayborn is somebody that relentlessly brings that attitude, energy, and toughness. Brooks Reed, Vic Beasley, and certainly Dwight Freeney’s have been a big part of that just by his willingness to share how he prepares as a pass rusher each and every week. It’s quite a bit different to hear it from one of your peers than it is from a coach to know this is a spot you can go to, to how hard you can work at it. Then moving forward for us, we’ve got to do a good job, this quarterback is athletic and he can move so it’s going to take every guy finishing for us to be able to affect him. We’ve got our work cut out for us but it’s a challenge that we’re 100 percent pumped and ready to get going on.”

On Jalen Collins seeing snaps in the last game:

“We wanted to make sure when your number’s called and we’ve had a number of different guys step up when their called upon. This year defensively we’ve had quite a few guys take on different roles so when Jalen was dressed and ready we thought he would answer the bell so to speak. He certainly did. He’s somebody we have a lot of confidence in and his teammates have a lot of confidence in him as well. Early on we didn’t have him dress at times and he missed some ball games. We thought C.J. Goodwin was participating on special teams better, but as it played down in the game Collins had a really good ball game. No bigger play for us than the really physical fit play down by the goal line.”

On whether he worries about the rookie wall that people talk about:

“Well I don’t blow it out of proportion because it’s a longer season so I think it’s fair to recognize that, but I also think having a really strong mindset and how you want to go and have your approach be to things is really important too. I’d rather discuss those kinds of topics with guys that these are some things that might have jammed other people up this is how we’re going to train you and prepare you. They understand the importance of the length you have to play based on some of their older teammates also look out for them and taking care of their body and the rest and recovery that you need to go through. One of the good things about being a rookie is the fresh legs so they recover a little more quickly and this rookie class for us has been, through Thomas Dimitroff and me, very impressive in terms of their approach and mindset to go. We anticipate those guys battling and continuing to put out for their teammate.”

On how to explain their success on the road at this point:

“I don’t know if we have a way to attribute a road or home game, but what I can say is we love the process we go through to get ready. We know we try not to let the external factors be significant in it whether it’s a night game, road game, Monday game, or Thursday game. That process that we go through to get ready, we love that and we rely on one another to get ready so whether we’re home, away, night, day, west coast, or east coast, we know we have a responsibility to each other to get ready and we love playing at home in front of our fans so if we could have them all home that’d be cool too with us. Having a chance for us to do it on the road knowing at the end of the day all the fans and all the other things that are external right there in between the white it’s still us against you and that’s what we try to recognize.”

On what goes through his mind when he looks at the 33.9 points per game:

“Well that’s the first I’ve thought about it. The first thing I’d say is there’s been a lot of explosive plays and whether it’s in the run game or the pass game when you have those kind of explosives and you take care of the ball usually you’re going to have better success. For us, we have a real emphasis on the explosives and our importance for going after the ball defensively and having a real mindset for it offensively. We recognize that we’ve got a lot of work to do on both sides of the line. We want to be better on third down and in the red zone so we feel like there’s a lot for us that we can improve upon and honestly that’s where our focus is right now as opposed to a stat line we’re trying to go for it in a big way to say like ‘man, how much better can we get?’ Some of it you have to measure in stat to say okay can we get better in these things? Some don’t show up on the stat sheet to show how we’re improving whether it’s the offensive line, the combination blocks, might be a block for a receiver in the run game, in the pass game it’s our protection and the way we punch. We do feel like we have a lot of room to improve in all three phases. We want to attack man, that’s our main goal.”