Super Bowl XLVI – Monday, January 30, 2012(opening remarks) “Good afternoon. To the very nice people of Indianapolis that welcomed us, we say, ‘Hello from the New York Giants and thank you for the beautiful weather.’ We all packed as if we were coming into snow country, but obviously we didn’t do a very good of anticipating. We’re very happy to be here and it’s an exciting time in all our lives. We look forward to this very historical event today, and I would think that the Indianapolis fans would now become Giants fans and support the Giants as well. We’ve been in anticipation of this, in coming out here to Indianapolis, of getting started on this wonderful Super Bowl week, of conducting our meetings and practices here and acclimating our players to the surroundings and having an opportunity to get over to the stadium tomorrow for media day. We’re excited to get things started.”
(on what P Steve Weatherford has brought to the table for the Giants) “He’s done an outstanding job. We knew him as an excellent athlete and have done our homework on Steve. Obviously, he’s a guy who comes very well prepared, energetic, an exceptional weight room worker, and a good example for a conditioning guy to be honest with you. All you need to do is look outside my office window and there he is; Mondays, Tuesdays he’s out there running and doing extra conditioning. We knew him as a very versatile punter. He’s come on and he’s worked very hard to be the style of punter that we would employ as a Giant punter, and he’s done a good job of that. He’s become proficient as a directional punter, and I think he’s improved as the year has gone along. He adds an element of excitement to our team in that he’s been in four championship games and not advanced to the Super Bowl. He’s very, very excited to be a part of this Super Bowl team.”
(on his relationship with New England head coach Bill Belichick while they coached together with the Giants) “Well documented, but nevertheless Bill and I were assistant coaches together back on the Giants teams. I was not with the ’86 team. I was fortunate enough to come in and be hired by Bill Parcells in 1988, and I was a part of the ‘88, ’89, and ’90 New York Giants, and of course a Super Bowl championship in 1990-91. Bill was the defensive coordinator and the secondary coach while I was the receivers coach. What we did was, early on there was a certain amount of competitiveness about the positions and the interaction of the positions. More than that, there was a spirit of cooperation. We helped each other and would act as each other’s scout squad. We would take advantage during training camp of any opportunity we were given to work against each other, whether it be red zone work, one-on-one, or whatever. We would show him the design that he wanted to see, and he would show us the coverage that he wanted to see. We worked well together, and I think it was a very good thing for our staff to be honest with you because our cooperation was outstanding. Both sides, the secondary and receiving corps, benefitted from it.”
(on what he admires about Belichick’s coaching style and whether it changes how he prepares for the Patriots) “I certainly do admire him, and he’s done an outstanding job. He’s an exceptional football coach, and I’ve said that before. The style and the preparation…Bill is going to work very hard, as we are, at showing you something and it really isn’t what you think it is. You really have to add an element of that into how you prepare. He’s always been an exceptional defensive coach trained by the best, by Parcells. He’s also become an outstanding offensive coach and Tom Brady has helped him to really diversify and get into areas offensively that only lead to the particular strengths of the individuals involved, and he’s done a very good job of that. He’s always been an outstanding special teamer because he was a special teams coach at one time.”
(on what he learned from former Giants head coach Bill Parcells and how his coaching style has evolved to relate with today’s players) “From Parcells, the thing that I admire mostly from Bill Parcells to George Young, Mr. Mara when I had the opportunity to tell him, was the belief in continuity, the stability. There were very few peaks and valleys. There was a feeling of pressure; the finger was always on the coaching staff and how they prepared their team and how the players responded to that. Ultimately, anyone who was around Parcells for any length of time learned how to win. That’s the biggest thing I took away from it. When I left the head coach of the New York Giants and became the head coach at Boston College, it was an ideal time for me because I had just come off a Super Bowl championship. My confidence was very high and I believed in how our system worked and the infinite details that went into coaching assignments and working with players, etc. That’s the way my head coaching opportunities began. I think you always stimulate yourself and you’re always trying to improve. No matter what year it is and what the circumstance is, what I’ve always done is taken an offseason and launched myself into something that I can improve upon that our staff and our players can benefit from. That’s how it’s evolved for me.”
(on what a second championship would do to his and quarterback Eli Manning’s legacy) “I think for Eli it would be a great endorsement for the quality of football player he is, what kind of football season he has had, and what he means to our football team and our franchise. The second part of that is, it’s not about me. That’s the furthest thing from my mind is how this enhances my legacy or whatever term you used. That’s nowhere near anything that I am thinking about right now. What I’m concerned with is the concentration of our players, putting ourselves in the best frame of mind that we can possibly be, preparing our team to the best of our ability, and then playing exceptionally well, as best as we possibly can.”
(on how he is able to set boundaries with players who are outspoken and say things about the team without crossing the line) “I think that, first and foremost, what you want to try and accomplish is that if a player has something he wants to say about the way business is being done, then come in, sit down, and talk to me. That’s the basic bottom line. Players have personalities and they are who they are. You want a certain amount of that on your football team, but you don’t want someone who puts themselves in a position to hurt your team. So, there’s a standard there with how flexible you are. I thought that Michael Strahan, once he got to know us and know what our program was all about, he was a tremendous supporter of it and he did a great job as our defensive captain.”
(on how valuable prior Super Bowl experience is) “I think it’s important. What we have is a nucleus of guys who can relate to the younger players, who can talk to them now and have been talking to them for the last week, about how to conduct themselves in this environment, how to know exactly what’s coming, how to deal with distractions and deal with all of the issues coming up from family and tickets and those type of things, trying to get that taken care of before we even come out here so that the player has no distractions out here whatsoever. The furthermore, the buildup to the football game, no matter how you want to put it, presented is something that these young guys have never, never gone through. Just the day of the Super Bowl and then the time on the field, if you’re not comfortable with your team and making them understand that there is a lot of nervous energy that can be spent without actually accomplishing anything. I think there is any number of ways. Mostly, it’s about attitude. Mostly, it’s about where if you’re in a position that the young player is responsive and he will listen to some of the players that have gone through this before…Eli stood up in the team meeting the other day and said a lot of things that were responded to not only by the young kids, but by the veterans as well. I think that the information gathering and sharing of information from someone who has been there and succeeded, that can be extremely valuable.”
(on why the Giants decided to travel to Indianapolis today rather than yesterday and whether the flight seemed like a normal road trip or a trip to the Super Bowl) “First of all, this is the path that we followed four years ago. I thought it was a very good one and it came from research that I had done prior to setting the exact schedule. I felt that our players, because of arriving here when we do and because of media day tomorrow, have plenty of time to be accumulated to the hotel, to the setting, to the meeting rooms. You see these guys walking around now trying to find their way around. That’ll all be taken care of when we go to work on Wednesday. I just felt like this whole process was very good, and the way in which our schedule was established. I thought it was very good for us the last time we did it. We tinkered with it a little bit here and there, with the circumstances that we have been dealt with meeting rooms and that type of thing, but for the most part, the schedule remains the same. The flight started out like a day in which we were making a normal travel to a game, and you kind of have to catch yourself realizing you have a lot of work to do throughout the course of the week. I think the players were excited. When we got on the plane, it was the video cameras and all of that stuff. They’re excited about it.”
(on how QB Eli Manning has performed this season and proved he is an elite quarterback) “The best thing that I can say to answer that question is his response when he was asked probably about the hundredth time that he was asked about that whole situation is, ‘Look, I’m trying to be the best quarterback that I can possibly be and to help our team win.’ And I thought, ‘Boom, that’s the answer.’ I congratulated him on his response and I told the whole team about it. I think it’s a good one. He’s never ever been anything less than a top one to me, and that’s all I care about. I certainly felt…I don’t know if I got the entire story on it. What I really heard is this business about him being elite, and he is elite, period.”
(on his level of concern of his team being in the middle of the downtown area) “Look, for me to be concerned with something that I didn’t have anything to do with doesn’t make any sense to me. We try to make our team aware of what it means being located in the center of town and what it means to be in a community where no matter where they go and whatever restaurant they’re in, everyone is going to know who they are and that can be a good thing. You just have to make sure that you understand the circumstances and you go forth as a pro.”
(on what has brought slot receivers into the forefront the past couple of seasons) “It certainly is a matchup thing, but obviously the better that you are at that spot, particularly with the underneath routes and the things that you can do to beat the one-on-one coverage and the quickness with which the ball can be released by the quarterback. If you’re good enough and quick enough to get yourself in the middle of the field when the safeties divide, you provide the quarterback with an awful lot of weaponry. With Wes Welker, it certainly seems that the position has been made for his outstanding quickness and his ability to win the matchups and get on top against two-deep. In Victor Cruz, you have the same kind of young guy who has exceptional quickness and is learning as he goes along here and has had an exceptional year as he learns more about how to play at an NFL level.”
(on how Coach Belichick’s diverse strategies with personnel and game planning, and how difficult that is to plan for) “I think that’s what we all try and strive for. There’s always some kind of wrinkle that you have to try and defend and prepare for. Bill does an exceptional job of that. He’s a football coach, and you have to prepare for the whole deal.”
(on the biggest change or adjustment he has made since the Jacksonville era) “Probably patience. Picking my spots better in terms of the spontaneity that perhaps I would utilize in terms of trying to correct something right away. Maybe waiting and picking my spot. Mainly, I think it’s more patience.”
(on beating the Patriots on two last-minute drives the last two times they have met) “If I got the question right, each year is a different year and each team is a different team. Certainly the Patriots have been able to prove that they’ve been able to drive the ball at the end of the game and win, and fortunately so have the Giants.”
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