Marty: Gameplan was early casualty last week

The idea was not for Nick Foles to drop back to pass 50 or so times in his starting debut, Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said Friday. It just worked out that way, after the Birds fell behind early and had to go to a 2-minute offensive approach, Mornhinweg said.

"We struggled to get anything going at all" in the 31-6 loss, Mornhinweg said, as the Birds prepared to take another shot at breaking a now-six-game losing streak, at the Linc Monday night against the Panthers.

Foles, who will start again Monday with Michael Vick still sidelined by a concussion, threw third-down interceptions on his first two series, distorting the rest of the game. "I've got to do better. Third and longs with a rookie quarterback, you're always susceptible to those types of things," Mornhinweg said.

Mornhinweg said Foles "learned an awful lot ... And I will say I'm excited about this ballgame coming up. because not always, but normally, that second start for a rookie quarterback is usually a little bit better ... We've got to help him. I've gotta help him, the line's gotta help him, the receivers gotta help him. We dropped a host of balls (against Washington). We've got to cumulatively get to the next level so Nick can have success."

Overall, Mornhinweg said: "We've been nicked up pretty good, but nobody wants to hear about that. We've got some fine football players ... We haven't played very many plays together. I would expect us to get better and better every week. It's just that simple.

"We've got to take on, sort of, the personality of this city. We've got to be bold and aggressive in everything we do, in this situation. I'm sure there's some people out there that have been knocked down. Shoot, we get up, dust ourselves off and let's get to the next thing, And the next thing is this practice coming up ... That has to be our mentality."