*Giants head coach and players react following the team's Thursday night matchup vs. the Eagles. *
Giants Head Coach Ben McAdoo
On the game:
"We spotted them 14 points. We didn't score touchdowns. We kicked field goals. We turned it over three times. We didn't handle the ball well enough. They won the penalty battle and we didn't tackle well enough. I give Philly credit, they played winning football today."
On not clinching playoff berth:
"I didn't coach well enough and we didn't play well enough in all three phases." On 4th down penalty against Eagles CB Nolan Carroll:
"It was not a penalty right?"
*On locker room speech post game: *
"I didn't coach well enough and we didn't play well enough. We have to get healthy and make a push against Washington."
On what was wrong early:
"We didn't play well enough."
*On roughness calls: *
"I thought [RDE] Olivier [Vernon] tackled him in the strike zone. I am not sure how he cannot drive the quarterback into the ground there when he was trying to tackle him. Again, we will submit it and get an explanation for it. I thought [LCB] Eli [Apple] was trying to protect the quarterback at the end, he was trying to pull off as the quarterback went down to slide to protect himself, Eli kind of slid and tried to protect the quarterback. But, we will get with the league, get an explanation, and get on the same page."
*On LDT Damon Harrison injury: *
"I haven't had a chance to talk to him. He is in there getting treatment now."
On Manning's game tonight:
"We turned the ball over too much. The quarterback got hit too much. Not a recipe for success."
On the team tying the season high in rushing yards:
"Yeah, we mixed the run. We mixed the pass. We were confident in both the run and the pass."
On whether TE Will Tye could have fought harder for the last pass of the game, which the Eagles intercepted:
"The quarterback couldn't step into the ball and throw it on a rope the way he wanted to throw it on a rope. When the ball is in the air, we like our players to go attack the ball." On whether he was comfortable with the pass and run play distribution:
"We felt good with the pass and with the run. We had a couple two minute drives in there that threw it out of whack."
On whether he thought the second down play to WR Odell Beckham Jr. could have been a touchdown:
"I think anytime you get the ball in his hands, it has a chance to go for a touchdown."
On positive takeaways from the game:
"We need to go look at the tape, make the corrections on the film and get better."
On Manning's first interception:
"We'll take a look at it and we'll make comments after."
Giants QB Eli Manning
On being eliminated from clinching the NFC East Division title:
"Obviously we wanted to get the win tonight, but we didn't play well enough. I got off to a bad start – a bad interception early on – and spotted them a 14-0 lead. After that we did some good things; moved the ball, made some plays. We got down into scoring position a bunch, and just, too many field goals. That's really what it came down to. After that, we played pretty good football, but just had to settle for too many field goals. Credit to them, they made some plays down in the green zone, we just didn't quite make enough."
On how he feels following a career-high 63 pass attempts:
"It feels fine. [I'm] just disappointed that we weren't able to pull it off. [We were] a couple plays away from winning that football game."
On whether it is tough to win with an unbalanced offensive attack:
"We got down trying to fight back into the game. So looking at the fourth quarter, trying to score, we kind of got into a two-minute mode. Again, we were moving the ball doing that. We just got into a lot of third downs, and didn't get quite enough completions on first and second down. They did a good job defensively; they didn't give us too many big plays, they were kind of making us throw underneath and getting a pretty good pass rush."
On the Giants' rushing game:
"I knew we ran for over 100 yards, I'm pretty sure. [There were] a couple big runs, popped a couple nice 20, 30-yard runs it seemed like. I thought the run game was strong and ran pretty well."
On his first interception in the first quarter:
"Bad decision. Stepping up there it was one of those deals. I was trying to get the ball to [Giants TE Will] Tye, [I] felt a little pressure so I tried to put it on his back hip. I saw the defender in front, [but] didn't see the defender behind that was trying to stop him. I just never saw the defender that was chasing him from behind."
On his incomplete pass to Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr. in the end zone with 20 seconds remaining:
"I had him. I had a shot, had a little double move and probably could've tried to throw it early and make sure I had enough room with the end zone and put it on a line so the safety couldn't recover, and just missed him a little bit. [It's] not a route we throw all the time, kind of a desperation moment right there, but definitely had one of those plays again that we didn't make it. It was there and we didn't make it and it could've been a winner."
On his last interception late in the fourth quarter:
"[I was] just getting hit as I was trying to throw it and the ball didn't get out how I wanted it to."
On if it helps after tonight being able to control their own destiny in the wildcard race with not being able to win the division:
"Obviously, I'm disappointed right now just in the way we played tonight. But obviously we know we can bounce back and still get a win next week and get in the playoffs. We have to go into Washington in a tough environment, but it definitely helps the circumstances."
On Eagles S Malcolm Jenkins' second interception:
"I tried to hit [WR Sterling] Shepard on a little outside fade route. I saw they were playing Jenkins in the quarter, not really too high or real wide. I thought I could still throw it line drive and get it in there. He just reacted a little bit better than I anticipated."
On not scoring 20 points on offense in a month and if it's hard to win when the margin of error is so small:
"We expect to score more. We want to score more. I thought today we had opportunities to score more. We just didn't. We have to find ways to not turn the ball over, don't spot the opposing team, points, and score touchdowns when we get down in the red zone. "
On if knowing how much was at stake early unsettled them:
"I don't think so. Coming into a short week we just got off to a slow start. That happens. That happens in football, but you have to recover from those. I thought we recovered well. We got it within 8 at halftime. We had opportunities to take the lead and get it even closer. We just had to keep settling for field goals."
On if he was surprised he didn't have a successful end game drive:
"We moved the ball [but turned it over on] downs. Went to Shepherd there on the last sideline and had an opportunity to make a play. Then the last one we just ran out of time. Obviously, I'm disappointed. As an offense we expect to be able to go out there and score touchdowns and win the game in those circumstances. That's what we need to do to get wins."
On their confidence going to Washington, D.C. and getting a win:
"We need to be confident. We can get healthy and get a little break these next couple days and come back next week prepared to have a great week of preparation and practice and go out there and play better football."
Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr.
On how disappointing it was to not clinch a playoff spot tonight:
"Obviously that's what you want to do. You want to come in here and take care of business. Obviously, we didn't do that tonight. It's not the end of the season; we still have another game."
On how important it is that the team still controls its own destiny:
"That's the most important thing; it's in our hands. We know we had a couple of opportunities in the end to make some plays and we just didn't come up with it. It's not the end of the season; we still have another game left to play. We just have to wait and see how things play out this weekend and go take care of business next weekend."
On whether he thought he had enough for the first down on that challenged play:
"I don't know. I was just trying to do whatever I could to get the first down. It's my job to play; it's not my job to make calls. Whatever the call was, then that was what it is and you just have to live with the result."
On whether he was open on the potential game-winning touchdown:
"Yeah I just didn't make the play. The ball wasn't overthrown it was put right where it needed to be. I just needed a little bit more gas in me to go and get it. When you get into a two-minute situation at the end of the game and you run a 30-yard route and come back, you run another 30-yard route and you come back and then you try to get it again, I just didn't have enough gas to go and get it. It wasn't really overthrown; I needed to do a better job. That's one of the things I said I needed to work on: when the ball is in the air, you duck your head and take three steps and drive, look up and then take another three steps and drive. I just didn't do it for some reason, I thought I would've been able to go and get to it and I wasn't. That weighs heavy on me; I want to be able to make those plays for this team. We had our own destiny in our hands tonight and we just didn't come up with it."
On how difficult it is to stay within the offense after getting behind 14-0 early in the game:
"When you go out and you try to score 14 points in one drive, it's never going to happen. We got knocked down early; they came out and hit us right in the mouth. We got back up; we were going to fight the entire time. We knew what kind of game it was going to be. The defense made stop after stop. We just have to put more points on the board. That's really the bottom line. We had an opportunity to end the game with the offense on the field and we just didn't make it happen. There's definitely a lot of progress and you can tell even from fighting back that this team has what it takes. You can't get down like that early; it's very tough to come back from, especially in this environment for sure."
On if he has an idea why the offense struggles early in games:
"They came out and they were ready to play. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to them. They came out ready to play where they scored on their first possession. Came back, got a turnover and scored again. They did a great job at controlling the game early and making plays. It was an uphill battle for the rest of the game from that point on, but we still fought. We fought back and there are a lot of positives to take from this. Unfortunately, one of them is not a win. That's really the case."
On whether it's hard to be patient for at least another week to make the playoffs:
"Yeah, but I truly believe that God always puts you in positions on things that you can handle. This is a learning curve for us and I'd much rather have it happen today than down the road: getting into the playoffs and then this result happening. It would be horrible. You take this and you learn from it. We're going to grow and we're going to come out fired up next, knowing what we have to do. Going up against the Redskins, they've beaten us once already. We have to go into their home turf and just have to dig, scratch, and claw and try to find a way to win."
On whether he was frustrated with the lack of calls in the game given its physical nature:
"We know what it is over here; we know what it's always going to be. We're not looking for any calls, you just have to play through it and that's the bottom line. We threw 63 passes and I don't know how many runs we had, but I felt like they were effective runs. They were getting 8- yard gains, 12-yard gains and short third-and-2's. We were picking them up. We're doing things well and we're moving in the right direction, it's just hard to fight an uphill battle the entire time, so we just have to find a way to not come out and let a team do that early. But we still have one more game."
On why the offense can't seem to have that "break-out" game:
"Let's say it hasn't been there, it hasn't been there, it hasn't been there and then next week it's there. I think everything goes out the window. Then we'll be over here talking about the offense next week and what an explosive game we had and not about what we're not doing. So it's just about timing. I truly believe that it will all come together at the right time. But the time is pretty much now."
On how great it would be to score 30 points in a game:
"Of course, I play offense. Of course I want to score 30 points, but that hasn't been the case. We're not going to get frustrated and this isn't going to make or break who we are. If anything, I think it will make this team stronger; especially when we get everybody back together next week. You get to spend a little time with your family and get away from everything. It will be almost like a mini bye-week where we had the early game and now we get the weekend where we can recover, spend time with your family, enjoy those moments and truly cherish them. And I'm looking forward to it."
Giants WR Victor Cruz
On what it felt like to be playing in Lincoln Financial Field tonight:
"It was an emotional moment, obviously going back to where my first injury happened about two years ago. I just went to that corner of the end zone, reflected on that moment. Went back to that same timeframe and how it felt and kind of wanted to just pay my respects to that moment and then move on. "
On when he went to the end zone to reflect:
"When I first came out to warm up and throw around with [Giants QB] Eli [Manning]. I went straight to the corner of the end zone and just took a knee and said a little prayer and went from there."
On whether he thought about his injury when he was running a route near that area of the end zone:
"Yeah, the radar went off, that's for sure. The radar definitely went off, but obviously I just want to make myself available with whatever play call may come and do what I'm supposed to do."
On whether there was a lot of physical play between the Giants receivers and the Eagles defensive backs:
"That happens each and every week. It's football. It's every week. Nothing has changed. You get the same kind of coverage. The same kind of physical play. To go along with it, we get the same no-calls, so nothing's changed."
On whether it was odd to have 60-plus passes and no holding or pass interference calls:
"We threw it 63 times. No holding calls. No pass interferences. You said it better than I did."
On the frustration level after not being able to close out the game:
"I think it's exactly that. Understanding that we had it right there for our grasp to win this game and be right into the playoffs, right where we want to be, and we didn't complete that task today. So unfortunately we have to go into next week hoping some things happen with some other teams I assume. I don't really even know. I haven't even wrapped my head around it right now, but just gotta make sure we're ready come next week."
Giants S Landon Collins
On stopping the Eagles on fourth down in the third quarter:
"You're just hoping for the best at that moment. Our job is to get the ball back to the offense, and that's what we did. You can just hope for the best after that."
On the defense carrying the weight:
"I always say defense wins championships and offense wins games. We love being on the field at the end of the game, so any time we have that opportunity we're going to try to be the best we can be."
On Eagles QB Carson Wentz:
"He uses his God-given ability with his feet. He's strong and he's a young guy. He's a great quarterback that keeps his eyes downfield, and it's hard to sack him because he can move. Whenever he can, he's going to slip out of things."
