david dieHl - New York Giants

normally would have. Now, that’s not what happened. They came with everything they had, but there
are people that will play that in a more conservative role because it’s third down.
“To your original question, which I didn’t spend any time answering, the losses are much more difficult
to get over the further you are in your career. They’re killers. You don’t sleep. I went on that couch right
there at 3 o’clock in the morning and I could not get to sleep because, to be honest with you, I kept
going over, over and over saying, ‘How could I have helped our team when it was 15 seconds left?’ Of
course, I’ve got all the scenarios the next morning. Sure, it’s easy. But who’s telling you a 44-yarder is an
easy field goal? We had made two yards on a run and they know we’re throwing the ball.”
Q: So you keep replaying these scenarios in your head…
Coughlin: “You do, over and over and over and over, and it’s not healthy, because when I make a
decision like that, I’m basing it on years of experience. There’s no way we can do anything in the middle
of the field because the clock will run out on us. I know what people are going to do on the sideline.
How are we going to fit one in there when you probably have at least two rolled up defenders covering
the side. So the percentages for me in my mind were to put this…there have been a ton of long field
goals kicked this year and I get asked about it by the media every week. What’s the explanation for
some of these field goals? I don’t know what it is, but it’s still early enough in the year where the ball will
carry. There was a little wind there, but whether it was cross or whatever, it was a little different in the
second half than it was the first half.”
Q: The first kick (nullified by a Philadelphia timeout) had the distance.
Coughlin: “It was just left. That was our best shot to win, I felt. We took it. Now, of course, the next day
I’m going to blame myself for everything because that’s the way I choose to do it. No one play
determines the outcome. My opening statement to my own team is penalties will lose games. We had
the ball on the second drive of the game at the 11-yard line and had a (holding) penalty that brought
that back (to the Giants’ 41). We had a penalty at the end of the game. We threw a foolish interception,
which was so uncharacteristic. The corner is sitting deep in the end zone. He did the same thing on the
touchdown to Bear (Pascoe) underneath. The corner was back so far there’s no way you’re going to get
the flag route. You’re not going to get it. They played differently, obviously. When they’re going to be
playing from ahead, they played a little differently in our tight green zone, too. They were really
interested in drawing our timeouts and they got them. They got them. You’re going to get it. Milk the
clock, the game is over. So it’s a shame. It’s a game that they played well. They didn’t even turn it over.
They averaged four turnovers a game. We never got one. The first half, we were tremendous, but we
didn’t play good run defense in the second half at all.”
Q: You spoke at your news conference about a number of shortcomings - the run offense, the run
defense, punting, you didn’t punt well. You were dissatisfied with several areas the other night. When
that happens, how do you deal with all these issues where you seek improvement? Do you go to your
coordinators and say, “I want you to work on this?”
Coughlin: “You do it, first of all, in your initial staff meeting right after you grade the film. All of the
coaches are in there. You spend an hour talking about who played well, who didn’t play well. What is
your expectation level? Why didn’t this happen? What happened here? How do we improve this? It’s
not about the individual that made the error, it’s about correcting the error. It’s always that way. So you
start out with your team that way. Let’s get this corrected.
“But you have to realize that it’s a difficult team to run the ball against and they have outstanding
personnel in the secondary and probably, if you were to just analyze it, you’d say, ‘Well, the success in