Justin Pugh said he is shocked the Giants have scored just 13 points in two games. Photo by Andy Lewis / contrastphotogrpahy.com

Giants veteran offensive lineman, Justin Pugh said the offensive line was not going to give up, that they would keep fighting to figure out a way to get the job done.

When your quarterback gets sacked eight times in the first two games, you’ve scored only 13 points and there is not real running game to bank on, what else can you do? The schedule is not going to cut you any breaks. The next team up is Philadelphia…the Eagles have and 18-10 record against Big Blue during the Manning era.

Pugh said he was at a loss of words seeing he is team has posted just 13 points in the first two games.

“I’m shocked,” the Bucks County, PA native said. “Obviously, we’ve got to put up more points than that.”

Pugh was asked of he has a sense of overall what is going wrong with the offensive line.

“Well, right now, not much is going right. So, there’s not much – we’re not running the ball well, we’re not protecting the quarterback very well. Coach probably touched on it, we’re not playing complementary football. So, we’re not good overall.”

What can be done at this point to improve on offense?

“A lot. A lot can be done,” Pugh said. “Obviously, we’ve got to get there and we’ve got to be our toughest critic. I think we’ve got to come together and start playing for each other and start playing as a team because right now, we’re just not playing up to our ability. To think maybe – I don’t know what we’re thinking. Last year we went 11-5 and went to the playoffs, we can’t sleep on that. This is a new year, this is a new team. I’ve said from the beginning of the season, this is the most talented team we’ve had on paper, but you can’t go out there and just win on paper. We’re not comparing teams in fantasy football. So, we’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to do it.”

Does he have any answers on how this usit is just not playing together?

“Obviously, if I knew that answer, we would be able to make some changes,” Pugh said. “We’ve got to look in the mirror. We’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to go out and play better than this. Our defense is doing some really good things, we’ve got to put them in a better position. We’ve got to at least get field position and win the field position battle because if we give the opposing offense a long field, then it’s hard to drive on our defense. And as long as we don’t let them score easy points and get turnovers which lead to points, we’ll win some games.”

Eli Manning was asked if the game against the Eagles was a must-win

“I think you look at all games as must-win,” Manning said. “Obviously, it’s an important game in the situation, the little hole we’ve dug ourselves in. But, you can’t put more pressure on yourself than what’s needed. So, we’ve got to have a great week of preparation and go out there, play hard on offense, we’ve got to make more plays and play better, score more points.”

Manning was asked where is confidence was with the offensive line which may be missing starting right tackle Bobby Hart with a sprained ankle.

“I’ve got great confidence in these guys,” Manning said, “They work their tails off and they’re prepared. They know they’ve got a great test in front of them, Eagles defensive line [is] one of the best in the league. But I’ve got great confidence in them, they’ll do their job, they’ll give us enough time to make the plays.”

When you look back at last week’s game against Detroit, do you see things that you could have done to help out the offensive line?

“Yeah, there’s always things that you can do,” the quarterback said. “You can always look back and say, ‘Oh I could’ve maybe moved a little bit here, or I could’ve gotten through this progression a little bit faster.’ So, there’s things you can always do, looking back. But, sometimes you’re looking down field, or sometimes you feel the rush, sometimes you don’t, that’s just football. So, yeah, there’s always stuff you can look at to improve on to try to help those guys out.”

Mike Sullivan was asked if teams have figured him out. He said can only look at his own preparation and see what he needs to do better. He realized though when you lose, people second guess you.

“That’s one way I think could be looked at it from the outside looking in,” Sullivan said. “I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I think we’ve certainly looked at the tape and haven’t necessarily had the sense of, ‘Oh man, they certainly had our playbook right here’ or ‘Holy cow, they must have been able to hear what we said on the headsets.’ I think you give credit to the opponent. We’re not making excuses.
“It’s easy to sit up here and talk about obviously the mistakes that we made and the things that we have to overcome and not give the opponents credit because they did do a good job,” Sullivan continued. “I want to make sure I’m clear about that. From the standpoint of being predictable, I don’t know how predictable we’ve been. We haven’t been out there long enough to be predictable. I hope we can be predictable because that means we’re sustaining some drives and we’re doing some things to get the ball in the endzone, but I don’t know if that’s quite on point right now.”

Sullivan said he can make the right calls or the wrong calls, his players still have to execute the plays.

“Well, I think regardless of the team, regardless of the offense that’s run, regardless of any of those variables, it still comes down to players making plays and it’s about the players and it’s about them being able to go out there and perform and then obviously, no kidding, it’s our job to put them in the right spots and try to feature what their strengths are and try to minimize or mask or reduce what the weaknesses are.

“I think that you brought up a point as far as how that’s going to unfold,” Sullivan continued “I think the most important thing for us right now is making sure that we can start playing better football, more consistent football and that seems like an oversimplification. But, a lot of that just comes down to us having more opportunities and that goes back to answer Kim’s question as far as the three-and-outs and turnovers and those negative plays that keep us from getting in some type of a rhythm. That’s, I think, what we’re going to have to do regardless of the play-calling situation.”

Sullivan was asked if he was counting on the line to protect better or would he scheme around that.

“I think it’s a combination of both.” he said. “We’re always looking to get better. There’s always improvement. That’s why we’re out there practicing. It never happens as fast as we might like and there’s frustration, I’m sure, from all of our fans and from everyone on the outside looking in and, guess what, our players are frustrated with themselves. We’re frustrated in ourselves as coaches and I think when that comes to the forefront, you can either complain about it and point fingers and look for the blame or circle the wagons and say, listen, we just have to keep wheeling stones down the street, just keep grinding away, keep grinding away, keep trying to find a way to get better in conjunction with the individual technique, regardless of the position. Then also from a schematic standpoint, trying to do the same thing, as I mentioned earlier, that can play to our strengths and then try to minimize our weaknesses.”