Juan Casillo: ‘We are going to turn this around’

Have no fear, Juan Castillo has the answers.

Hopefully, he’ll share them soon.

The first-year defensive coordinator sat at the podium Thursday with a confident smile. Yes, his defense has blown three straight fourth-quarter leads. Sure, his unit has made tackling look like a chore.

But Castillo insists that his defense is championship-caliber. At least, that was his message.

“Here’s what I know about the city of Philadelphia, the fans, our owner: We’re going to win, and we’re going to turn this around,” Castillo said. “We have the answers, and then when we win, I know they’ll understand.”

Castillo partially blamed the lockout for a slow start. It’s been an ongoing struggle to get players to adjust to his scheme, while keeping conditioning up so they don’t tire late in games.

“The hard thing is that there are some things schematically that you haven’t been able to work on,” Castillo said. “We’re getting ourselves into shape, and every week we’re getting better.”

Darryl Tapp admitted that players still don’t have Castillo’s scheme “down pat.” Once they get, it’s just a matter of execution.

“I doubt any team is really 100 percent in their scheme at this point in time, with the lack of OTAs and things of that nature,” Tapp said. “There are a lot of teams that are a lot better off because they was in the same scheme they were last year, but with us having a new scheme implemented, it made it a lot harder for us.”

Castillo re-iterated that the Eagles have been here before and it’s way too early to write them off.

“Remember, we are in week four,” he said. “The team that wins the Super Bowl is the hottest come December and January.”