With the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday and the New York Giants at 2-7 for the third consecutive season it was fair on Sunday night to ask star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, the longest-tenured Giant, if he would prefer to play somewhere else.
“I don’t,” Lawrence said after the Giants’ 34-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. “Just keep leading. Eventually the wall will break. That’s just what I’ve got to do as a leader.
“I think everyone as an individual has to look at themselves and see if they’re executing, if they’re in the right spots, if they’re doing the right thing, if they’re studying longer, if they’re making the plays that come to them. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
Let’s see what else players were saying after the Giants’ third straight loss.
‘We have talent’
Star left tackle Andrew Thomas has seen a lot of losing in his five seasons with the Giants. He still believes this year’s version of the Giants is better than it is playing.
“That’s the most frustrating part. I think we have talent. I think we can compete,” Thomas said. “It’s just about execution and the moments that matter. And I said that last weekend. We just are not doing it as a team, so we’ve got to figure out how to do that.”
Thomas is even more frustrated because of the “glimpses” the Giants have shown, like beating the Los Angeles Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles and leading the Denver Broncos 19-0 after three quarters before collapsing.
“I think it’s hard to win in this league. That’s the first thing,” Thomas said. “And two, I would say a lot of the games are closer – we’re scoring, we have glimpses, flashes of executing the right way, but it’s not consistent enough.”
‘It’s not fun to lose’
Jaxson Dart, and Cam Skattebo before he was lost for the season, have been adamant that past negativity around the Giants no longer mattered. At 2-7 and with that negativity once again at the forefront, has Dart belief been shaken?
“It’s not fun to lose,” Dart said. “I have all the confidence in the world each and every week that we are going to win. I don’t ever view another team any differently. Just as a team, we have opportunities to take advantage of moments, and I thought we did today, too. There’s just certain plays that we’ve got to make. I think we just need to play better football all around as a team, both sides of the ball, special teams. When you look at the whole spectrum, we just missed out on certain plays in all three phases. In this league you can’t do that.”
Dart said the Giants need to “not just let things collapse a little bit.”
“Good plays are going to happen for the other team, that’s just the league that we play in, and we can’t let one lead to another,” he said. “I think that’s just something we need to get better at. We have to have the intensity, the focus as a whole team to weather the adversity storms, andalways just keep the belief that we’re going to win. I think at times we just let a few things lead to another instead of just shutting it down one play at a time.”
‘That s—- is bad’
Edge defender Kayvon Thibodeaux did not mince words when it came to how the defense, which has surrendered 105 points in its last nine quarters, played on Sunday.
“That s—-’s bad, man. That’s s—-‘s real bad,” he said. “We’ve gotta do a better job as players, coaches, support, everybody’s gotta do a better job. That s—- is unacceptable.”
‘Do the simple things better’
Defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches said the Giants weren’t surprised by anything San Francisco did on offense.
“We knew their game plan,” Nunez-Roches said. “We’ve just got to execute. Gotta make plays that come to you. Execute on a higher level. Do the simple things better.”
‘It’s a copycat league’
Teams have been running at will against the Giants most of the season, much of that to the edges. After nine games, the Giants still have not shown any semblance of the ability to stop it.
“We’ve gotta know what we’re gonna get,” said safety Tyler Nubin. “Last couple weeks we’ve been getting a lot of perimeter plays. NFL’s a copycat league. Eagles saw what worked in Denver. These guys saw what worked against the Eagles. There was a lot of perimeter stuff.
“We’ve just gotta know what we’re gonna get now. It’s a copycat league. Teams are going to keep doing it until we stop it. So, probably gonna get it again next week.”
See More:
