Q: Did the Bengals catch the Giants off guard today?
A: I can't say that they caught us off guard. We were prepared. We just couldn't get them off the field. We got them in to third-down situations a couple of times and couldn't get them off the field on their first drive of the game. That got them started. That gave them some confidence today. That got them off to a good start. That was not where we wanted them to be.Q: Do you feel you were sluggish today?
A: No. Defensively, we came out with a lot of tempo. We came out strong and stopped the run really good. Overall, we played the run pretty decent. We gave up the one big-pass play early. After that, it seemed like they nickel-and-dimed us a lot. We gave up a lot of third-down conversions today, obviously. We've been a good third-down team. Today, we couldn't get off the field on third down. We couldn't get them in to third-and-long. They had a lot of third-and-short — that gave them the option to run or pass. I think that was the biggest difference in the game. They were in third-in-short, instead of third-and-long.
Q: How do you describe this today?
A letdown. Obviously, we didn't play well on all three phases. We turned the ball over too much. We gave up the early momentum on the touchdown, early in the game. That gave them some confidence. You can't do that against a team like this.
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