Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin.

TC: I’ll just start out by saying that I left a question up in the air last night that should’ve been answered properly, and it had to do with the interception. Someone asked me if you needed or you should have been throwing the ball to the sideline there rather than into the middle of the field because the assumption being there wasn’t enough time. There was plenty of time. There was 19 seconds left, and although we weren’t really right on top of field goal range, we had plenty of time to get the ball up the field and then get the clock call in to stop the clock, and then make a decision whether we wanted to throw another pass or line up for a long field goal. And I say that because remember there was 19 seconds when the ball was snapped. When we lined up for kickoff return after the interception touchdown there were 6 seconds left. So there were only 13 seconds off the clock with someone setting up and throwing the ball—the interception—and then the run back had taken a total of 13 seconds, I believe, so there was plenty of time even though we didn’t have any timeouts to keep the ball inside the field of play, provided we were ready to get up on top of the ball and clock the ball. And of course that would preclude that you were not talking about a fourth down play. So I want to make sure the understanding—there was plenty of time.
 
Q: How is Robert Ayers Jr. doing and what’s the status with him going to be?

A: I’m staying away from that. You know what—I don’t know a whole lot more. They were all sent out to get MRIs and that type of thing this afternoon. I’m not sure what the… I haven’t heard anything back. Let me put it that way at this point in time.
 
Q: What did you think of the offensive line’s performance after you got to check that out one more time – and Geoff Schwartz in particular?

A: Well, in spurts we did fine and other times we didn’t do fine. We didn’t keep as clean a pocket as we’ve been keeping back there in the two previous games. I give credit to the Jet defensive line and linebackers—they did a very good job in terms of pressure. And as I’ve said, some things we did well and other things we didn’t do as well, so one of the objectives for us in the game was to—knowing full well what we were going up against in terms of pressure—to make sure that that was an exceptional learning experience. Of course you’re always trying to hurt pressure, because there is a sense of vulnerability if you can get the ball thrown and caught with the run after the catch and that type of thing, so I think we did some things well but not consistently. One of the other questions I was asked last night was “What happened in the 14 play drive that didn’t happen later on?” Well, it was execution obviously. We had two penalties give us first downs in that drive as well, but it was execution. The execution was not consistent enough. We didn’t make enough plays one after the other, and again we left ourselves in a lot of second and longs. We didn’t do as much on first down as we wanted to do, so I would say overall it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be and there is a lot of work to be done. We did do some things okay.
 
Q: What did you see from the defense? Is it where they need to be at this point or do you think they still have a ways to go?

A: I think we all have a ways to go. I don’t think any of it is exactly where it should be. I think that our defense, truth be known, gave up a couple of scores period. We held them under 17 points. We gave them an interception touchdown up and a punt return touchdown up, so we were just as… you know, we had the feeling that, or I had the feeling that they were running the ball and running it with consistency, and doing a good job of that. And we didn’t make as many stops as we want to make, and so from that standpoint we have work to do. But as I say, there weren’t a lot of points scored, but there was some run yardage out there that you like to think you can stop.
 
Q: Are you going to sign Stevie Brown today?

A: We’re going to bring him in and give him a physical.
 
Q: Why do you feel the need to add another safety at this point? You’ve had I think four guys that sort of shuffled in and out there early. What’s the thinking behind having another safety in there?

A: The thinking behind that is to try and improve that position. And I’m sure that—this goes for every team in the league—but if there is a player that, in this case we know this player well, but if that player can come in there and help us then we’re interested.
 
Q: I know you have the next-man-up mentality on both sides of the ball, but when you have as many injuries and guys coming in and out as you’ve had on defense, does that make the process to gel a little bit longer than you’d like to see it happen?

A: Well, you don’t have a lot of continuity when there’s a lot of change and when there are a lot of people missing, and you have to create your own. And it takes a little bit of time to do that. There is no excuse—I mean we’ve been practicing long enough—but there is no question that when you are constantly changing parts that it is not quite as smooth as you’d like it to be. And many times, although our game is a game of continuously building on the present week, over the long-haul you really do have to build and build and build and allow that what someone experienced two weeks ago—if in fact it comes up again in a game—and perhaps it’s something new, then you have to be able to reach back into your toolbox and into your memory bank and understand what’s trying to take place. When those things happen, there is some shuffling around. And whether it’s a guy missing a practice or two or a week and then comes back, there is no question that you’d like to see the carry over. And you don’t have it—like the other night with [Landon] Collins and Cooper Taylor, just being given the green light to go play. That means that they’ve been in meetings all this time, but they haven’t practiced. And there is no question about the correlation—we do so many jog-throughs, so many walkthroughs. Particularly as you get toward the end of the week, but the ability to carry that over into the full speed action, I still wonder about that.
 
Q: What did you think of your safety play last night particularly those two young guys that you got the chance to actually get out there on the field?

A: Both of those guys made some plays — Yeah they did. They got up there and tackled — Cooper Taylor got a sack coming off the weak side and Collins had some nice plays and some hits he made a nice tackle. They got out there, they played, they got that experience in and no worse for wear.
 
Q: Tom, you’ve talked a lot about the downfield passing game. Are the attempts enough for you or are you still looking for that connection in the preseason?

A: No, but that is me. I come from a long line of — I like the ball thrown down the field, I like taking shots, I like all of those things and it is one thing to talk about it and another things to do it. We just haven’t done it and we haven’t that many opportunities or taken that many opportunities and it is frustrating because there were some opportunities out on the field last night for some big plays and the other thing is we are not taking advantage of some of the opportunities that are created by some of the receivers. When a receiver is open down field we’ve got to give them a chance — it is their chance as well to help our team by establishing what they can do and we are not taking advantage of that enough.
 
Q: Tom, do you expect to have Victor Cruz back at practice this week?

A: Not as far as I know. I have not been told that. Progress… yes but he has not definitely been given the green light.
 
Q: You may not have a choice with this but do you have any issue with potentially putting him in on opening night without seeing him at all in a preseason game?

A: Well everybody has issues with it. You need to practice, you really do you are not going to be as efficient as you can so I’ll just say that that wouldn’t be the preferred way.
 
Q: What were your thoughts on Owa? We talked about him a little during the week. It seemed like he did a good job of holding his edge on some of those plays.

A: He has done a good job to this point in time and we are obviously thinking more and more about how we might be able to utilize him to a further extent, so he is a young man that we have high expectations for.
 
Q: Have you seen a change from him just from the first preseason game until this preseason game? It seemed like he was a little more disciplined and the game is slowing down for him.

A: Well obviously he has had a chance to practice and he has had a chance to learn more in the system and look at himself on tape and his coach has been able to make the corrections with him. Again, that accumulative effect is what you are trying to accomplish in professional football even throughout the course of the entire season so he definitely has improved — there is still of course a lot of work to be done but he has improved.
 
Q: Tom, I don’t think we’ve talked to you since Nat Berhe has had his surgery he mentioned that he thinks might be able to play this year. Do you have any update on whether he will be able to play or whether he will be out a long time?

A: I don’t and I think there is more information trying to be gathered, there [are] decisions that have to be made and of course there is a very short amount of time to make them in so I appreciate very much Nat’s optimism. I wish it had a bigger factor on the healing process because he has been in a good frame of mind ever since last spring but it just… for whatever is going on down there it wasn’t to be and so now that he has had some further work done I hope that we can rectify that situation.
 
Q: Tom, the play where Eli missed Odell deep against Revis, it seems like that was a pass that Eli was connecting on with Odell at the end of last season. Did he just miss it [or did he] anticipate Odell to look outside?

A: No I don’t think so I think [Eli] just missed it. I think [Eli]…when Odell went by [Revis] he was expecting maybe one thing to happen but when he was clearly behind him by four or five yards then the ball had to be thrown in a different spot and it wasn’t. To be honest with you I’m not sure if Eli was already halfway through his motion or whatever but the ball obviously was not in a position where it could’ve been caught in bounds.
 
Q: Tom, I’m not sure there was a safety back there. Is that a play that you guys just have to connect on to be successful?

A: Oh absolutely that is points. You are talking points on the board right there and that has to happen — when you get somebody behind people and open you have to be able to get them the ball.