A: He’s having an MRI this afternoon and we won’t know
until after that.
Q: Were there any other injuries of note in the game?
A: LaVar (Arrington) is having an MRI and (Justin) Tuck is
having an MRI on his foot.
Q: Are there any ramifications from Tiki Barber’s hit,
or is he fine?
A: He seemed to be fine.
Q: Is the MRI on Arrington just to confirm, or is there
a possibility it wasn’t completely torn?
A: No. Well, they’re very confident – I shouldn’t say that
– they’re very sure of what it is, but of course they’re going to do all of
the tests.
A: Frank Walker has a hamstring strain, and it’s probably
going to be day-to-day.
Q: I know you said Umenyiora is getting an MRI. Do you
think this could be a lengthy thing?
A: I have no idea. I know that he’s very sore, and
hopefully it will be a minimal amount of time, but I’m really not sure.
Q: Do you have a plan in mind on how you’re going to
compensate for the loss of Arrington?
A: We’re working on that and talking about that. I’ll have
something for you.
Q: Given that Arrington was coming on, how concerned are
you about filling that spot now?
A: Very concerned. As we were indicating each week, LaVar
kept playing a little better, getting more comfortable in the scheme (and)
looked like he was moving better. He had practiced every day for the last two
weeks and not missed a practice. He was feeling pretty good about himself and
felt like he was real aware of the responsibilities within the various
coverages and the rushes that he had. I am definitely concerned, but I think
more than that I feel very badly for him, and we all do. Here’s a guy who
realized that he had a great opportunity and there’s an awful lot of questions
about where he had been, what range of ability he had, and he was trying to
answer all of those questions. He was playing hard and he was trying to get
to a point where he was making a statement about his ability. As a team, we
were excited about having him. And then he’s injured and he’s gone. It’s not
a happy occasion when that happens. I think you have to feel badly for the
player.
Q: Did you sense also, given the role he has in the
locker room, that the team almost seemed to sag back a little bit on that
drive when he went out?
A: I think that happens. I know that there’s a
psychological downer, if you will, whenever something like that happens and
someone has to be removed from the field. There are a lot of questions about
their health, how they feel and the extent of the injury. But right away – we
knew.
Q: This is the second straight year that it’s taken the
defense three games to hit its stride. Is that just a coincidence, or is
there something in that as far as the time it takes to mold?
A: I don’t know that there’s anything there except a
coincidence. I’m not sure of that having any significance at all. I think
we’re playing more recklessly now. I think we’re playing with speed. I think
we’re physical. I think we take great pride in what we’re doing, and I think
just in watching the demeanor, the players are conducting themselves on the
field with energy. I think it’s obvious that some good things are going on,
and what that has to do with any other year, I wouldn’t even attempt to guess.
Q: Obviously we saw last year what happened when
injuries began to pile up. Are you convinced that you have better depth this
year that you can withstand the loss of LaVar?
A: We’ll see. Any time you take a quality player out, it’s
not good, because it’s difficult to replace these people. But we have good
players here, and they’re going to have to. We’re going to have to rise up
and guys are going to have to take the position and play well and allow us to
continue.
Q: How close is Carlos Emmons to being able to come back
and play in a game?
A: I’m hoping he’s ready to come back right now. He’s had
a week of padded work and this will be his second week, so certainly the
timing is right.
Q: How important when dealing with injuries is it to
have built up a lead in the division?
A: Injuries happen in this game, and for everybody to take
the gloom and doom approach is not…It’s not the way that we’re going to
approach it, I can tell you that right now. It’s early in the season. We
just completed our seventh week – there’s a long way to go. Every win is an
important win, and every man who is on your team has a specific job, a
contribution, a strong contribution to make, a responsibility – whether or not
they’re taking mental reps or actually playing in the game at that position –
to improve and to be prepared and ready to go if indeed called upon. Because
that’s part of the responsibility of being a good teammate, is to not let the
other guys down. We’ll see to what extent we can continue to move forward. I
certainly do – We all do feel badly for LaVar, but we also know that we have
to move forward.
Q: If Emmons is ready to go, does he move to the strong
side?
A: I’m not going to say anything or speculate where anybody
goes until I’ve had a good opportunity to discuss it.
Q: Could he, though? He started there last year.
A: He has played both sides.
Q: Are those two sides fairly interchangeable?
A: No. Not really. Some of it is --when the defenses are
called that provide for them both being off the ball, they’re similar. But
normally not when one is on the line of scrimmage and the other is off. As I
said, we interchange them throughout the course of training camp, throughout
the course of…They have to be ready to go, one side or the other. Each
individual has played both positions or tried to play two positions, anyway,
as you come out of camp. There is some work that has been done there.
Q: Because of the way Mathias Kiwanuka moves, could he
possibly be a replacement, if conditions were right?
A: There’s no sense in speculating on that right now. We
don’t know the status of two of our other defensive ends.
Q: You had a lot of new guys cycling in last night. How
did you feel with guys like Kiwanuka playing a lot of snaps-
A: Oh, I like that. They’ve had good practices and have
always been involved. That’s one thing about defensively—there’s been lots of
substitutions and practice time spent on bringing along a lot of people. There
certainly was an occasion to be able to cash in on that last night.
Q: Some of the characterizations said the team has
turned things around and is playing better now. Do you think that’s an
accurate portrayal of these last few games?
A: Well, there isn’t any question. Starting with the
Washington game, we did play better. We played better because we played very
well on defense. We didn’t give anything up. It pretty much started there,
and so for the last three weeks we’ve played very well. We’ve been able to
compliment each other, and all three phases have played what I’ve been
characterizing as ‘Giant football’.
Q: Was the Seattle game a low point?
A: It certainly wasn’t a high point.
Q: One of the quotes from Antonio Pierce said he thinks
the defense and the whole team should continue to play with that attitude,
like they are underdogs.
A: There’s no question about that. There isn’t any
question in my mind that what’s most important is a team which has an attitude
toward itself that indicates that improvement is a very, very important
thing. And, of course, winning and the pursuit of championships. Those are
the things that are important, and you can never – Really, what you’d like to
do is take the good from each game experience and then recognize that there
are many areas that need improvement and apply yourself to that improvement.
Always with the sting of – We have a slogan that we use, which is, ‘Prepare in
practice as if you’ve lost your last game.’ I think that kind of puts it into
perspective for where I like the mental of this thing to be, and the physical
part of it to be, is to continue to be smart about addressing the next
opponent and, again, taking the good from the game that you’ve just completed,
but understanding that, certainly, you’re not entitled to anything because of
what you did yesterday. If you’re sitting around wondering about what you did
yesterday, you certainly haven’t done a whole lot about today.
Q: I know you’re going to take each of the games coming
up individually, but can you just speak to the rarity of having three straight
home games?
A: I wouldn’t even be able to tell you last week who was
beyond the Tampa Bay game. That’s kind of the way I’m going to keep it. For
us, it’s a matter of 10 one-game schedules. Tampa Bay is the next game, and
they’re certainly worthy of every ounce of preparation and every ounce of
study that we can put into it. We’re coming off a Monday night game. It’s a
short week and we have an awful lot of work to do. We’re very glad and very
thankful that we’re going to be at home, and we certainly look forward to
playing in front of our home crowd again – Giants Stadium full of Giants
fans. We’re going to need that kind of energy and motivation this weekend and
that’s where it is for me. The fact that we are at home is a good thing, and
hopefully the 12th man will provide us with that continuous spark.
Q: Matt Bryant made the kick of his life, obviously, on
Sunday to beat the Eagles. Just to go back for a second, do you recall if
your concerns with him were basically his inability to stay on the field
because of his hamstrings, or based on his accuracy or length of kicks?
A: No, I think it was the injury factor more than anything
else, as I recall.
Q: There seemed to be a couple of plays where
horse-collar tackles were not called again.
A: The official comment on the one on Tiki was that in
order to call the horse-collar tackle, the runner has to be immediately yanked
off his feet. Of course, that wasn’t the case last night with the run that
Tiki had, in that there were a few yards or whatever where they were engaged
before he actually came down. That’s the interpretation. We certainly felt
that there was a back of the shirt kind of position that was taken, but I
guess because of the fact that it wasn’t immediate that the runner lost his
footing, the call wasn’t made.
Q: But now you’ve seen it four or five times since they
put this rule in, and it’s never been called. Do you feel like they maybe
need to look at the rule again in a different way because it seems to just be
open to too much interpretation?
A: They spent two years on this year. The first year that
the rule was in effect, they made an arbitrary decision, from where I’m
sitting, that they weren’t going to call it. This year, this is the first
time that I had heard that interpretation, but that’s the way it’s being
officiated. The officials, to their credit, they knew exactly how it was
interpreted. They were willing to volunteer to me exactly what – how the rule
is enforced.
Q: With Tuck, was it his foot or his ankle?
A: It’s his foot. He has a swollen foot.
Q: You not only defeated the Cowboys pretty soundly, but
you also seemed to leave them in disarray with their quarterback situation and
now they have three road games. Was last night’s victory maybe more than just
one win, as far as the impact it could have on the division race?
A: I hadn’t even thought about that. As I said, there are
many games to play. They’re a good football team. They’re well-coached, and
they will make the best of whatever they have to. This race is a most
difficult one, and I wouldn’t even speculate on anything except trying to get
ourselves ready for the next game.
A: He played pretty well. He did a nice job on (special)
teams, he did a nice job when he was in there at the linebacker spot.