On where the Giants fell short today:
"Up until halftime it was a very, very good and competitive football game. To start the second half off with an interception and touchdown…that's a tough way to start the second half. We were battling even then, to be in a position to kick the field goal and have the field goal blocked – which were contributing factors there as well – that was extremely disappointing and that very well may have changed the complexion of the game completely there. The penalty in the drive, which, there's no one touching the receiver – he can get up and run and he can do whatever he wants – then in comes a defender flying and, I guess, they called helmet-to-helmet. That's a very difficult call for me, but the penalty contributed to that. I did not like the end of our game offensively at all. We didn't move, we looked disorganized, we took a delay-of-game [penalty] again – that was totally unacceptable there. It's our first game, I liked their effort. I had no problem with that at all. But the execution, particularly the offensive execution, and the ability to defend the pass off of play action was disappointing."
On if the Giants encourage plays like safety Antrel Rolle's head-to-head penalty:
"No, no, you're not supposed to go helmet-to-helmet as a defender. It looked like he was trying to cover the guy up. I don't know that there was any intent there. I was very surprised when the penalty was called. Of course it was way across the field."
On whether the Giants' blocked field goal was due to a low kick:
"I think it was a combination of that and there was penetration on our left side. There was penetration on the left side and the ball was not elevated very well. It takes little then to block it, but that can't be an issue. Obviously, Lawrence [Tynes] has been out of action for awhile and we need to work on that. But that can't be a problem. We just won't let that be a problem."
On the defensive coverage problems today:
"Well, a couple of times that was true [the defenders were leaving too much of a cushion]. There were a couple of double moves that made us look bad and then we recovered and made a few plays on the deeper balls. We did have quite a bit of cushion on a couple of plays."
On the offensive stagnation from the preseason:
"Well, to me, it's the consistency factor. It seemed like if we did have a penalty, we didn't recover and that wasn't a problem for them. When they had a penalty, they would come back and make a first down and we did not. Our third downs were atrocious again. I think our inconsistency and our lack of third down production…you're not going to keep the ball if you can't do something with it on third down."
On if the interceptions were due to quarterback Eli Manning not seeing the defender coming up:
"Completely. Again, it was away from me. I did see a replay of it at the end of the game, but obviously that's a tall man (Ryan Kerrigan) that can get up in the air and elevate and he did so."
On if defensive end Justin Tuck was close to playing today:
"We thought so, but the doctors didn't want him to play."
On if the Giants lost today because they didn't have their whole team:
"No, no, that's not acceptable and we won't make any excuses about that. We came down, we were very well prepared and our guys were excited about playing. We knew the significance of the day and we wanted to pay our respects by the way in which we played. As I said, other than a couple of things that took place in the first half, it was highly competitive. We did not play the same way in the second half obviously. Offensively we didn't do a thing – we didn't score a point. That was very disappointing."
On what losing tight end Travis Beckum on Friday did to their game plan:
"He's our third down tight end. He's the guy that took all of the snaps for the whole week. That was part of the confusion with the two-minute drill at the end of the game. We had a tight end in there who hadn't really had much work, trying to do the best he could and the execution wasn't what it should have been."
On the Giants having a difficult time on short yardage runs:
"Well, on the fourth down one, it looked to me like they were in a…they seemed to gain leverage on us on the outside and there wasn't much room for the other back to go. They seemed to have the gaps covered along the front and the defender boxing the runs as well. Based on the formation that we use, I'm sure that there were nine, 10 people up at the line of scrimmage."
On the Giants two starting safeties playing down:
"That's not necessarily an indication of anything. In this day and age, safeties are all down at the line of scrimmage – you saw [Reed] Doughty down there the whole night for the Redskins. We had our safeties down and I'll have to take a look at the tape to make any other comment."
On how the Giants rookies played today:
"I don't really know. I'd have to take a look at the tape. There were obviously some errors on special teams and there were some penalties, but I'm not sure if it was those guys or not. They tried hard, we'd like the performance to obviously be better, but until I see the tape I won't be able to say."
