Super Bowl XLVI – Tuesday, January 31, 2012(on playing the Super Bowl near this alma mater Notre Dame and if he had more ticket requests than Super Bowl XLII ) “I’m hoping that it’s great. Obviously, we have to get a win first then I will be able to answer that question better. It’s good to be back close to home I guess. I know that I have a lot of support in Indiana. Hopefully I can wake up some echoes this week. I think I got a lot of requests this time and last time. Obviously, the first time was our first time out there so a lot of people were going to experience that for the first time. Being back close to the old stomping grounds I have gotten a huge number of requests that I haven’t been able to answer.”
(on slowing down Patriots tight ends Rob Gronkowski) “Hopefully that ankle hurts a little more than everyone expects it to and he is not as versatile as he has been. You talk about the talent that he is, he had probably the best year for a tight end ever. It’s a team effort. We know how to play against him. Obviously, we got the opportunity to play against him to see what he is all about in Week 9 and he had a great game that game. If he plays and regardless of what percentage he is, we will have some things in place to kind of have our best foot forward as far as stopping him.”
(on stopping the Patriots’ high-powered offense) “It’s about us. It’s not about what they do. As long as we go out and execute our game plan then we feel as though we can play with anybody. The Patriots are a very talented football team and we know that. It’s all about we do. We can’t wrap our mind around what they are going to offense because they are going to do what they do and it’s going to come down to which unit can execute the best.”
(on the relevance of winning Super Bowl XLII) “It really doesn’t matter that much. It was four years ago. A lot of come and go has taken place. I think we have more guys on this football team that were a part of that game than they do but at the end of the day the 2007 team has very little to do with the 2011 team. This game is going to be won in similar fashion but we are not necessarily trying to look into the past to see how to beat this team. (Tom) Brady has done a great job of changing their dynamic. I think in 2007 they were more of ‘an on the ends’ type of passing game with Randy Moss and things like that. Now with these tight ends, a lot of their strikes are coming down the middle. So they are different in that right.”
(on the Patriots’ offensive line) “I think they play well together. They are a group that is very athletic and it seems like their chemistry is tremendous. It seems like they know exactly how to help each other out so they pose a huge problem for us a front four group. They match up pretty well with us, it’s just going to come down to who wants it the most.”
(on the development of defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul) “Jason never fails to surprise me. Everyone knows about the guys physical talents. The guy is an absolute beast but what I appreciate about him is that he comes in the film room every day and he tries to grow as far as noticing how teams try to attack him and noticing the blocking schemes that teams are trying to show him. I think that is where he has improved the most…He is noticing how to notice what teams are doing to him early in games and it makes it easy for me or Osi (Umenyiora) or (offensive line) Coach (Robert) Nunn ideas of how to adjust.”
(on if he feels that this team is more confident that the 2007 Giants) “We were pretty confident in 2007. No one else was giving us a shot, but that’s something that this football team rarely lacks. We are a confident bunch of guys. I would say that our confidence level was just as high in 2007 as it is today…It’s all about going out there and 11 guys playing as one.”
(on the defensive line improvising at the line of scrimmage) “A lot of it is improvised. A lot of it is just chemistry and a lot of it is called at the line. A lot of it is down-and-distance based and formation based. I guess that is a credit to our experience and knowing what teams like to do in certain situations and knowing how to attack that. Coach Nunn and (Defensive Coordinator Perry (Fewell) have given us a lot of freedom to do our own thing in certain situations.”
(on his order of life importance being ‘faith, family, football’) “That’s how I base my life. A lot of times athletes understand the gladiator role that we play on the football field, but people don’t understand that we are human beings and have other passions in life other than going out and knocking a guy’s head off. One of mine is my faith. I am so glad that we picked up the slogan ‘all in.’ A lot of people don’t really understand what that means. It’s not necessarily all in on the football field but all in in life and that starts with our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
(on what has led to the emergence of the defensive line late in the season and into the postseason) “I think it has a lot to with the fact that we have gotten healthy. We have had the opportunity to play together more at the end of the year compared to than we did early in the year. Our chemistry is a whole lot better than what it was early in the year. I think we hurt ourselves with some of the stuff we did early in the year because we hadn’t been on the field with each other and we didn’t know how to play off of each other. We had some weeks there where it seemed like the only consistency there was JPP (Jason Pierre-Paul). The last couple of weeks it just seems like we have put things together. I can’t put my finger on exactly what has caused it but I would say that the health issues have a lot to do with it.”
(on if he feels that he can put pressure on Tom Brady and if that is the biggest factor of the game) “Yeah, I definitely do. It’s going to be a tall task because they are going to do some things to get the ball out of his hands quickly. That offensive line is going to be fired up to play their best game but we feel that we can play with anybody…I’m biased, but I’m going to say yes to that. I’m sure Eli (Manning) feels like he is going to have some say so in this game too. It’s all about the team though. I don’t want to make this all about Tom Brady versus the Giants defensive line because it’s not that. It’s Giants versus Patriots and we are going to have to play our best game on offense, defense and special teams.”
(on what has changed in the relationship between Tom Coughlin and the players since a near falling out five years ago) “The attitude didn’t change, he stayed consistent. I think we kind of got fed up with losing. We got fed up with people saying that our coach’s job was on the line every channel we turned to. At the end of the day I commend him for being faithful and as strong minded as he has been because he hasn’t changed his demeanor. He has probably loosened the reigns a little as far as giving us a little more freedom as far as some say so in the locker room. At the end of the day this is a Coughlin based football team and we are going to follow him until the end. That’s what’s changed.”
(on what advice he gives the younger players about playing in the Super Bowl) “Just that it’s just a football game. There is more media here than you have ever seen in your life and there is more hype around this game than anything you have seen in your life. But come Sunday it’s about playing a game. This is a business trip for us. It’s not about the parties, it’s not about the hoopla. You come down here and you handle business and then you can go back to New York and you can party all you want to.”
(on what scares him about that Patriots) “I’m not scared about anything. I respect them as a football team. I respect their parts and as a group, but it was a bad choice of words when you said scared.”
(on if he thought they would play in the Super Bowl when they were 7-7 this season) “You know if you had asked me that question then I probably would have told you that we have the opportunity to right this wrong. As far as truly believing that we were going to be here, probably not. We had a lot of things to right at that point. After that Jet game, I know that was just one week for the defense, but I would have had a completely different answer. It just seemed like the embarrassment of the Redskins game woke up a fire that I hadn’t seen before.”
(on the communication among the defensive line) “I would say that the biggest thing we do is talk. We do a great job of communicating. I have played with Osi (Umenyiora) for seven years now. We know our strengths and our weaknesses. We go into every week with a game plan of how we are going to beat certain guys. I know how Osi wants to beat a guy. He knows how I want to beat a guy. A lot of things are predicated on down and distances but we do a great job of talking. We let guys know what I am thinking this drive or what I am thinking this play. You are kind of prepared for it before it even happens. With that chemistry, I am so used to seeing Osi go high and he is so used to seeing me do a power rush inside. We have been there, done that. I can’t explain it. It’s just like brothers playing in a pickup game. You know where to cut to.”
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