Sep 252017
 
Sterling Shepard, New York Giants (September 24, 2017)

Sterling Shepard – © USA TODAY Sports

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MONDAY BEN MCADOO CONFERENCE CALL…
New York Giants Head Coach Ben McAdoo addressed the media by conference call on Monday to discuss the team’s 27-24 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles:

McAdoo: We’ll start off talking about yesterday’s game. We keep learning hard lessons on things we already know the answers to. When things go well, sometimes everything falls your way. When they don’t, we need to tighten up our football and play clean complementary football. We had 10 penalties on the road. Tough to win that way. Pre-snap, post-snap, celebration penalties, delay of game on a guard. It’s tough to win on the road playing that way. We dropped too many balls. Touchdown pass. Precise ball location. Things we have to clean up there. We need to be detailed with the way we carry out our responsibility the whole way around and really look no farther than the end of the ballgame where each of the three phases played a part. Shows you how precise we need to be on third down. We were just short of the sticks. We had a punt for 28 yards. Philly gets the ball. We called a timeout, talked about playing the ball on the boundary and they complete the ball and kick a 61-yarder to win the game. Tough lesson to learn. We already know the answers.

On defense, what we did well, we gave up zero explosives passes. What we need to work on, blocking structure and tackling in the run game.

Offensively, what we did well, we fought through the first three quarters. We showed some grit during the fourth quarter putting some points on the board. What we need to work on, we need to get better on third down. Be exact with what we’re doing. We need to put points on the board in the green zone, and I need to do a better job with that one as well. I need a better call there on the fourth down on the one-yard line.

Special teams, what we did well, it’s a better example of how we want to play field position football. Kickoff coverage, we did a nice job covering the kickoff from the 20-yard line, which is not easy to do. Punt return, we didn’t get the balls to return, but we blocked better, the corners and the safeties included there. We need to work on our constant technique in PAT field goal block and our frontline blocking on the kickoff return team.

Where we go from here. You know, we talked about it a little bit yesterday in the press conference, the three D’s, the cause of irritation, that’s where we are right now, we’re irritated. Deny, delay and disappointed. We need to keep fighting through. I believe in this team. I believe in the potential of this team. It starts with me and we need to keep fighting to get better and we need to keep fighting to get the win. Got to get that first one. With that, we will open it up for questions.

Q: What’s your reaction to Brandon Marshall getting into the altercation with the fan on the field before the game?

A: I don’t have a response to that at this moment.

Q: How do you approach the guys from getting too low with this kind of start to the season?

A:  We need to talk about our potential in the room. We haven’t played a complete football game and clean football in all three phases and we really haven’t earned a win yet. It’s all correctable and we need to stay positive but realistic and understand that we need to learn from these first three games and find a better way to play team football.

Q: What do you think of Odell’s display?

A: We should be talking about the way he played – he made some great plays in the ball game yesterday. Some tremendous plays, game changing plays. I’d rather be talking about that than the celebration penalty. It’s real simple, I don’t want to kick off from the 20-yard line. It doesn’t help our team. It makes it tough on the players who are covering kicks and makes an impact on field position.

Q: After the game Odell said that he didn’t really regret it and he would do it again. Does that bother you?

A: I gave you my response.

Q: Would it bother you if he did it again?

A: I’m saying I gave you my response.

Q: Can you address what he did? How does the organization feel about it? Is it embarrassing?

A: I just gave you my response

Q: But you didn’t give a response.

A: Yeah.

Q: What happened on that Brad Wing punt?

A: It looked like he just missed it.

Q: You mentioned the 4th and 1 play – Shane Smith didn’t play any offensive snaps yesterday, why not use a fullback?

A: Again, they were all hunkered down in there, whether you had a fullback on the field or not. It was going to be tough sledding. Like I said, I would like to have that call back. We did have some opportunities for one-on-ones on the outside. I take responsibility for that call.

Q: Is there still a place in your offense for a fullback?

A:  Yes. It was a game plan decision.

Q: What do you regret so much about that play call?

A: They had better angles than we had.

Q: What’s regrettable about the play call then?

A: Getting into something that gives you a little better chance, little better angles. Put the big guys in a bad spot there.

Q: Do you think you should be able to run the ball from there?

A: Like I said, I’d like to have that call back.

Q: Any updates on OV (Olivier Vernon) or (Orleans) Darkwa?

A:  Yeah, OV has an ankle. It’s still early in the week, we’ll have to see how he responds throughout the course of the week to treatment. And Darkwa is still getting examined.

Q: Any other injuries out of the game?

A: No, I think we’re fairly clean there at this point. But, players are still getting looked at.

Q: There were no sacks allowed in this game after allowing five to the Lions. Is that good enough progress or is the fact that Eli (Manning) was getting rid of the ball much quicker take away something from that?

A: I mean we couldn’t keep going down the same road we were going. We had to adjust and we adjusted. We just came up short.

Q: Do you think that style is sustainable for a full game?

A: It’s tough to sustain any one style of offensive football throughout the course of the season. Defenses adjust. There are tremendous defenses and defensive coaches in this league so it is hard to just play one way.

Q: Why didn’t you call a timeout after the completion to (Evan) Engram on the final drive?

A:  We didn’t lack composure. We had a drive starter to the drive and we were looking to transition into a tempo call, get the ball down the field and get it off quickly. Sometimes a tired d-line is a better d-line to go against.

Q: You’ve never been in this position before, 0-3, how do you keep this thing going?

A: I think number one is we can’t worry about playoffs this week, we just have to get a win. That’s number one. We can’t accomplish going to the playoffs or getting a playoff berth or anything like that this week. All we can focus on is the way we prepare so we can go down and perform well in Tampa. It’s going to be a tough ballgame. It’s going to be another warm one. That’s where our focus needs to be. We can only focus on what we can control and that’s the way we prepare.

Q: What is it that is different this year about the run defense?

A: We had a rough day yesterday defending the run. We need to be better with our blocking structure and we need to cut down on the missed tackles. We had some opportunities to tackle better and it starts with those two things.

Q: How do you fix tackling at this point of the season when there is not a lot of hitting going on at practice?

A: When you get your thud practices in on Thursday with pads on, that helps, but you have to keep drilling them.

Q: Did you get a sense from John Jerry as to what he was trying to accomplish on the delay penalty?

A: I just saw the TV copy this morning. I am going to have to have a conversation with him. I don’t know if it was just a natural reaction to a lineman running in front of his face or what it was. But I am going to have to have a conversation with John and see what he was thinking there. I have never seen that before. So, we’ll have to talk about it.

POST-GAME NOTES…
The Giants fell to 0-3 for the first time since 2013, when they lost their first six games.

The Giants have lost their last four and five of their last six games in Philadelphia, and six of seven overall to the Eagles.

The 61-yard game-winning field goal against the Giants was the longest field goal ever against the G-Men.

For the second time in three games, the Giants did not score any first-half points.

Quarterback Eli Manning’s 35 completions increased his career total to 4,158. That broke a tie with Pro Football Hall of Famer John Elway and moved Manning into sixth place on the NFL’s career list.

WHAT’S UP NEXT…
Select players will be available to the press on Tuesday. The Giants return to practice on Wednesday.

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Eric Kennedy

Eric Kennedy is Editor-in-Chief of BigBlueInteractive.com, a publication of Big Blue Interactive, LLC. Follow @BigBlueInteract on Twitter.

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