Q: When you looked at the film this morning,
were there any more encouraging signs than the performance you saw,
or was it as bad as you thought it was last night?
A: Well, it was pretty bad. To be honest with
you, there were times that I thought the pass protection was pretty
good. The last couple of kickoff returns, two or three kickoff
returns, I thought were encouraging. We drove the ball down a
couple of times only to have the inability to get it in the end
zone. As poorly as we played, if we were able to connect on the
long post ball --which was challenged and overruled – had we had
that ball, possibly in stride and then been able to do something
with the two other times we were down late in the game, we may have
been able to make a run right at the end of the game. But other
than that, there wasn’t a lot to be encouraged about.
Q: At this point in dealing with Eli Manning’s
slump, do you think it’s more technical in terms of him and what
he’s doing throwing the ball, or is it just mental decisions and
he’s just not making very good ones?
A: There obviously were poor decisions made last
night. I think the first interception, if the ball was thrown a
little further, you may get a classic scramble drill reception for a
relatively big play, a 40-yard play. But it’s just slightly
underthrown, and those are the consequences. The second
interception, I don’t know that there’s any real way that you can
excuse that. The defender is clearly planted in front of the
receiver. The ball goes there and it’s an interception. It’s a
bothersome thing. I think that there’s certainly some fundamental
work to be done, but I think what really – and I have to spend some
time thinking about this, because early in the year when the offense
was playing well and the defense wasn’t playing well, it was an idea
– The thought was to help the defense, to help them help themselves
by returning to the kind of football we wanted to play. And we were
able to do that. We ran the ball better, we held the ball longer,
the defense did a better job of getting on and off the field, and
also giving us the ball, and special teams contributed as well. Now
you’re looking at the opposite, in my opinion. You’re out of sync,
you’re out of whack. There’s not momentum. There isn’t any flow to
your game because the offense is not playing well. While the
defense did not play well last night, the defense had been playing
well and had improved over the course of weeks to show that. So now
we’re in a situation where I have to spend some time thinking about
how we might be able to get back in sync and playing together again
– offense, defense and special teams. It would be easy for me just
to sit here and say if we get our running game going, we’re going to
be able to do that a little bit better, take a little bit of
pressure off the defense. But I’ll spend some time thinking about
how we’d go about that.
Q: Is any of that play calling? You said last
night you didn’t think you ran as much as you should have.
A: That’s an easy thing to say after a game when
you’ve only run the ball 14 times. I would like…And that’s not the
play caller. It’s the same sense that you had when you were
watching the game, that we weren’t making any yardage with the run.
We were not in sync offensively. Our passing game had no rhythm and
we needed to do something, which we’ve done in the past effectively,
to help our tempo and to allow for Eli (Manning) to get into some
type of a rhythm. With regard to that, when we go to the no-huddle,
we do run the ball out of the no-huddle, but we obviously throw a
lot more than we run it. Now, I think the real issue again is the
fact that there are no first downs – there are 13 first downs, and
the fact that there’s 31 percent on third down and there’s only 56
plays again. Now, there were only 56 plays a week ago, as you
know. These are the areas – I don’t – It’d be nice to be able to
say, yeah, we needed to run the ball more, which we do. But that
wasn’t the sense that you had or I had in watching the game as the
game unfolded. It was more of a need to do something about our
tempo and not necessarily the play-calling or the ratio of
run-to-pass as much as to get the quarterback and the offense in
some kind of rhythm – to hold the ball longer, to do something with
the ball. Our defense, to be honest with you, had done -- to
prevent touchdowns and force them to kick field goals – had done a
decent job of that. But we didn’t stop the run. We didn’t stop the
play-action pass. We didn’t run the ball. We turned the ball
over. We didn’t keep the ball and we did not have a lot of rhythm
offensively. The first thought on my behalf was to try to create
some way in which we got into a little bit more sync offensively,
increased our tempo, and perhaps got some points out of that type of
play.
Q: That’s the second week in a row you’ve
mentioned the tempo issue. What can you do, besides the drastic
measure of going to a no-huddle?
A: I think if we go…If you rush the ball, or if
you try to rush the ball and you do a good job of at least
threatening that, you do have the play-action pass option. You stay
away – We didn’t have many penalties last night, but you stay away
from those difficult first-and-20-type situations and perhaps you
use some of your check down approach, if you will, a run. Our
screens were pretty effective last night and they were in
conjunction with the way in which the game was going. We came out
from behind a really big down-and-distance deficit to make a first
down in the second half. But I think you have to be able to go
ahead and rush the ball with some consistency to give yourself some
opportunities and play-action pass to create a little bit of a sense
of consistency in terms of your execution, which is where we are
not. I mentioned to the players last night, as probably I mentioned
to you, I think we’re somewhere…We’re definitely leaving a number of
plays on the field compared to the number of plays that we make.
Now whether it be last night’s epidemic of dropped balls or
whatever, we’re not making plays in the ratio where seven, eight,
nine to one, in terms of making plays rather than not making plays.
Certainly execution, at this time in the year – There’s nothing like
it. I didn’t…I thought that the opponent last night executed well
enough offensively to keep us somewhat off-balance, to keep a number
of players down in the box, to throw the individual play-action
passes when they needed to. So it’s an execution thing, I think, at
this time in the year. I went back earlier last week because I
wanted to see how in the world the Chargers came back from behind
28-7 to Cincinnati to win, and I thought I was going to find
something magical. There’s nothing magical. It’s just execution –
throwing a check down, running the power-play, throwing some semis,
getting some speed-out cuts. Just methodically doing a good job
into the blitz. It’s execution right now. Although I say we
pass-protected fairly well, we certainly have the yardage when we
did run the ball that gave us the advantage down and distance. More
often than not in that number, the small number of snaps that we had
last night with the run, it was second-and-8.
Q: Some coaches for a change of pace or to try
to kick-start things, have taken over play-calling. Have you
thought about that at all?
A: I don’t think that’s the issue.
Q: One of the things Eli’s teammates and
coaches have said is that he doesn’t get rattled and he doesn’t get
frustrated, but the last couple of weeks – especially last night --
he looked rattled and frustrated. Is that the case? Is he?
A: I don’t think…I’m certainly…I know that he’s
concerned. I do not think that he gets rattled. I know that he was
frustrated a couple a couple of times at some of the opportunities
that he had that didn’t prevail, both on his – with regard to his
situation, and then with the dropped balls. I think there probably
is frustration. I think any normal human being would be frustrated
when things consistently don’t go your way, and that was the case
last night. I think everybody’s frustrated. He does not have the
(market cornered) on frustration. He doesn’t…I wouldn’t say that I
would look hard for that, but I don’t think that ‘rattled’ was
necessarily the case. I think he’s anxious about making a play.
Q: Do you see that anxiousness translating
into he’s losing his mechanics a bit and the fundamentals that he
was talking about?
A: I don’t know that you…Those kinds of things
are just speculation. You can see sometimes when he’s moved out of
the pocket he’s either thrown the ball high or he’s underthrown a
deeper ball, if you will. It may be…He may be just a little bit off
on where exactly in a perfect world you’d like the ball to be.
Still, I think it has to be categorized as catchable. Nevertheless,
(it’s) not always the simplest of catches. Certainly I think a week
ago when we did have a couple of high throws, those were mechanics.
He’s very much aware of that. So we continue to work on that.
You’re looking for – And I understand it. I understand that you’re
concerned and that you want to have something concise to write with
regard to this, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think I
can just sit here and give you two lines that tell you exactly
what’s going to be corrected and how it’s going to be corrected.
We’re going to have to fight our way out of this just like we fought
our way earlier in the year out of the predicament we put ourselves
in then. It’s not necessarily simple. Maybe it’s not that complex,
but to explain it verbally is not necessarily going to give you the
kind of answer you want.
Q: Knowing all of that, do you remain
committed to letting Eli work this out, or is a change something
you’d consider at all?
A: No, I think what we have to do is get the
improvement, get Eli back on track.
Q: Were there any injuries to come out of the
game last night?
A: The only injury that I think was discussed
with you was (Barry) Cofield, and it really…It’s not as much a knee
as it is a groin. I think you guys had it as a knee. He did get a
bump on the knee, but that didn’t turn out to be much. – But he does
have a groin.
A: I think they are. They both are going to be
on the report, but they’re not going to miss anything.
Q: On the injury report with what injury?
A: They got bumped, that’s all. And they’re not
going to miss a thing.
A: I don’t know that he will. We’ll see. It
depends on how much he improves. He’s limited. He will be limited
and if he can go it will be probably limited, but nevertheless,
we’ll see.
Q: Are you expecting any of the guys that
didn’t make the trip to come back this week?
A: On paper, no. I have not been given the green
light on any of them. I know they’re going to continue to work with
Brandon Short and he may make some progress here that I’m not aware
of, but we’ll have to see.
Q: Sinorice Moss did make the trip and he was
inactive, nevertheless. Was that basically a game-time decision?
You didn’t see enough of him doing what you want to see in warm-ups,
or…?
A: No, no. As you know, you’re not supposed to
warm anybody up that’s on that list. That’s not always followed,
but we follow it. No, it was…He has made some progress and he’s
getting more confident. We have to see him more. I thought he
practiced every day last week, he earned the right to be on the trip
and that I would make a decision based on our status and if we were
healthy and if the receivers that had been working were going to get
up game day morning and feel good and there would be no illness or
anything like that, then I would stay with Sinorice being inactive.
Q: Knowing how you feel about the traditions
of football, how did you feel about Jack Del Rio and Mike Nolan
wearing the suits on the sideline?
A: I read about that earlier in the week and
from my understanding it was a tribute to the coaches who had in
other days, had worn coats and ties, and that was – I think Mike
Nolan was the first to mention it and he wanted to do it out of
respect for his dad. That being the case, I think it’s a wonderful
way to pay tribute.
A: He did all right. There’s always some things
you’d like to have back. He had the one holding penalty and he did
have a false start, but I thought he did a pretty good job and
obviously we all need to do better.
Q: He didn’t do anything there that would
entice you to go to Plan B?
A: Not at this moment, no. You know, you’re
asking me a question like that and at this point in time, no. It is
a short week, but at this point in time, no.
Q: When offenses struggle, coaches tend say
let’s find five or six things we do well and let’s do that. Can you
do that?
A: Well, that certainly is one thought-process
and hopefully we’ll…We may be able to do something along those
lines. I’d like to discover something…I’d like to do something
well, offensively do something well to encourage everyone, including
our defense.
Q: We all know what a high work ethic Eli
Manning has. As he tries to work himself out of this slump, how
much harder can he work, or what things can he work on knowing that
he already pushes himself to the max?
A: Well, we like to put him in those situations
in practice where he sees exactly what he’s going to see in the
game, and then to have him carry over with those things in reality
at game time. I think we can continue to work along those lines. I
just think it’s a matter of he has to work his way out of it. He
has to play his way out of it.