david dieHl - New York Giants

Head Coach Tom Coughlin
Postgame at Ravens, December 23, 2012
Opening Statement: “I thought our week was a good week. I thought last night our meetings were well
done. I think we came in here and we tried hard. We worked hard at it. We obviously have a very bad
formula going on right here. We’re having trouble stopping people and our offense doesn’t hold the ball
at all to give our defense a chance to catch their breath. We’ve had two games in a row, pretty much the
exact same scenario, with 47 offensive snaps last week, 41 this week. The other guy had double, almost
40 minutes time of possession. As I told the players, it’s a very difficult time for all of us. I take full
responsibility for this team. I am the head coach. What has happened over the course of the last couple
of weeks is very difficult to explain. We had a resounding win against New Orleans and felt real good
about ourselves, and then I have no explanation as to why we’re in the position that we’re in. We’re
playing a lot of people, we’re putting a lot of people in positions where they need to make plays and
frankly, right now, we’re not making any. We’re not making any plays on defense. We didn’t make any
plays necessarily on special teams, although we did a pretty good job of controlling a very, very good
returner [Jacoby Jones], whether via kick-off returner or punt-returner—so we did a decent job of that.
But that’s all. We did nothing offensively. We certainly didn’t do anything to help our cause on the
defensive side of the ball either.”
On if he thinks the team deserves to make the playoffs:
“If we get into the playoffs, we will deserve to make it. That’s very remote right now.”
On DT Chris Canty’s injury: “I don’t know exactly what it is. It’s a knee and he wasn’t able to go back.
Chris Canty was playing hard and he made some plays for us.”
On the emotions down the stretch:
“I would stay away from that. I feel badly for everyone in that locker room because I’m sure that none of
them, they can’t figure this thing out either. We don’t look like a well-oiled machine offensively at all.
We’ve certainly had our struggles in and out with people, but still that’s not an excuse. We’re just a very
long way from being the team that played New Orleans.”
On the Ravens’ pass protection:
“It wasn’t anything to do with scheme. I’d like to say it was. I think they threw, I think what they did,
they came out and went strictly up-tempo. I think one series, or half of a series, we were scrambling
around, but we adjusted to that tempo. I think they tried to do the same thing on the defensive side of
the ball and made it that we couldn’t just go up and snap it, we had to recognize different people and
identify them for pass protection, that kind of slowed us down a little bit. But other than that, they did
pressure us as they were playing and they did a good job of it.”
On this year compared to other years Coughlin coached:
“It’s difficult, very difficult, very, very difficult. There are a lot of proud guys in that locker room that are
looking to me for answers. The answers are not easy ones.”
On the defense:
“I wouldn’t say it’s just defense. I would have to say the offense is very far from where we’d hope to
be.”
On not having a late season surge:
“We weren’t able to get it done. We don’t have momentum going. We came into this circumstance and
we knew it very well, but we’re not playing anywhere near that type of football, and when it happened
for us last year, this particular game, the 15th game, we had a spark, we really had a great spark. You
want to say it was the Victor Cruz 99-yarder? Whatever it was, it really invigorated our team, and then
the way that we played and we prepared ourselves for the next week, and we played very well the next