Bucs' head coach Greg Schiano stood at the podium at Raymond James Stadium shortly after Sunday's heart breaking loss to the Eagles and took questions from the media in attendance. Below is a transcript of the press conference.

Can you talk about the third–and-7 play and running the ball there late in the game?
“There are two ways to play it. You can try to throw the ball. We decided to run the ball and make them use their timeout or let it tick. My thinking was we can punt the ball away and if we get a stop the game is over. They have no timeouts. If we don’t get the stop, we put it on the defense if we didn’t come up with the stop. When you are on our side of the playing field the risk reward [or] tip pass anything that could go wrong where you can get the ball to the plus side. As it turns out we didn’t have a great punt which could have helped.  You hit a boomer there and you get them back to the 18, 16, 20 whatever, but that’s not what happened. At the end of the day we just had too many mistakes to win an NFL football game. That’s what it boils down to.”

What kind of mistakes did you see?
“Well there are obvious ones; there is a guy that got cut loose in coverage in one of the plays. Just throughout the game there were too many penalties at inopportune times. We had our hands on some balls that we didn’t catch. We were fortunate too. There were some balls that they could have intercepted and they didn’t. At the end of the day we just didn’t play well enough [and] we didn’t coach well enough to win. All that responsibility falls on me. I am in charge. We needed to play better to win and that didn’t happen.”

You dominated the first half defensively, but what happened in the second half. Did they adjust and did you guys just not adjust well enough back to them?
“I think really [in] the second half you are talking about two drives. I thought that [well] I don’t know what the numbers are, but bulk of the yardage – bulk of everything comes on those two drives. They are two touchdown drives that win the game for them. It is what it is.”

What happened with Josh Freeman overall today, but particularly the first half?
“I’ll have to watch the tape to see exactly what the problems were. It just seemed like he wasn’t himself, wasn’t in sync. Then he made some throws that make you say ‘oh there he is.’ We as an offensive football team didn’t play the way we are capable of playing. We made some critical mistakes. At the end of the day you can’t do that in the National Football League. It doesn’t work.”

Was Leonard (Johnson) supposed to get a jam on the receiver in that play there near the end what was the coverage there?
“Well it is a red zone coverage that is designed for those types of plays. They are trying to do what they are trying to do too so it is imposing wills and their will won on this play. By inches, but it won.”

Does losing three in a row change the challenge for you and your staff in the final weeks to try to reestablish what you had going earlier in the year?
“I’d be disappointed if there was a harder way to prepare and get ready then what we have been doing. We try to do everything that we can. Turn over every stone. That is the way that we operate. We are going to continue to do that. We have to do something. I have to do something to get our team to play better because we didn’t play well enough to win and that’s my job.”

How long was the conversation about the third–and–7 or third-and-8 play?
“We usually talk through those situations well before we get there. But then again you can’t take the football out of the game. You have to feel what the momentum is. Although they had scored the previous drive I felt good that we could rush the passer in a pass only situation with no timeouts. Really we thought that they might be playing and we could pop that one. That is either a feast or famine run and it didn’t pop. Again, knowing that it is a feast or famine-- it is first down and here we go or we are going to punt the ball. We resign ourselves to the fact that we are going to punt them down and we are going to play great defense and they need to go score a touchdown. We didn’t do that.”

Can you talk about what happened near end of the first half it looked like there were some coverage busts?
“There was a mistake in coverage and on the touchdown run by (Nick) Foles we had a mistake in a pressure. So yes two mistakes. That’s what I mean we made too many mistakes there. It is not mistakes because guys are not working and not preparing, it is more mistakes of guys trying to do too much. Guys trying to make—you have to do your job. That’s our home motto do your job. Sometimes coaches [or] players we all try to call too perfect a play or you try to do something as a player to make something happen. You can’t do that. It is the ultimate team game for a reason. You have to do your job and when you do that it gives you a chance to win. Today we didn’t do that consistently enough and that’s why we lost.”

Do you put any of it on the fact you are at the back of your depth chart with some of those positions?
“Nobody cares about that. It is the NFL. You play with the guys that you have and I think the guys we have are good players. We just got to coach them better and we got to get them ready to play and help them make plays.”

Any chance that with all the talk about the 2002 team and celebration that these guys came out and wanted to do a little too much?
“I sure hope not. I don’t think [so]. I can see why you asked the question, but I don’t think [so]. We got so much at stake during the football game. Right now we are playing for a lot and we just didn’t do it well enough. That’s why we lost.”