By Patrick Del Gaone, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
As for the two-point conversion attempt to win yesterday's game at M&T Bank Stadium, the Ravens knew what was coming.
That according to Eagles' head coach Doug Pederson, who explained why rookie Byron Marshall's presence in the backfield wasn't an indicator of Philadelphia's play-call.
"No," Pederson said. "They knew we were throwing the ball."
"Listen, in my mind, there was zero opportunity to run, because what we anticipated is what we got. They gapped out, they zero blitzed us, there was not gonna be a lane. It was gonna be a one-yard loss if we tried to run the football at that time. In those situations, as a defensive coordinator, you storm the castle, and that's what they did. Then you try to create the matchup one-on-one, which we had a good one on our slot receiver, Jordan Matthews. Just unfortunate that the one extra guy, got his hand on the ball and tipped it. It didn't matter who was in the backfield at the time, the fact of the matter is we weren't gonna run the ball in that situation."
In case the credentialed sports media members were unable to decipher those convoluted football terms, the neophyte head coach described in layman's terms why his play-call was the correct one.
"Listen, from a football coaches standpoint, maybe from layman's terms it might appear that way. But when you're in the heat of the battle like that, they're gonna do what they do, we're gonna do what we do. I know what we did on the first two-point conversion, it was in the first half of the game when, really, I decided to go for two then because of the weather. I didn't wanna take points off the board with a potential missed extra point, with the way we were kicking into the wind at that time. So, that's a different situation, different scenario. This was a true gotta have it situation, and we had our best play at that time against that defense."
Given the state of the hog-mollies, Pederson announced that right tackle Lane Johnson will resume starting bookend tackle duties on Thursday night after serving a ten-game suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
"Going into this game," Pederson said. "Considering the state of the injuries that we've had, Lane will go in as the starter."
Although injury risk can rise after such a long layoff, the first-year head coach believes the former Oklahoma Sooner's exceptional athleticism offsets much of the threat.
"It's possible," Pederson said. "Just have to kind of see, when I put my eyes on Lane, just to see where he's at physically, and what he's been doing over the last ten weeks. He's such a tremendous athlete that I wouldn't expect anything too traumatic to happen in the next couple of weeks, but obviously it is possible.
You can watch the full press conference from Pederson below.
