Giants players take the blame on defense
Antrel Rolle of the Giants looks on during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center on July 22, 2014 in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: Mike Stobe
So far, the Giants players are putting their putrid defensive performance on themselves and not the coaching staff.
"It's more so us paying attention to detail and transferring what we know, what we learned in practice, and transferring it over to the field," safety Antrel Rolle said. "You don't see two and two matching right now ... I think the coaches have done a great job of presenting us with details. Us as players have to do a great job of paying attention to detail and making sure we execute our assignments."
Tom Coughlin said he will not make any changes to the structure of the defensive coaching staff, but he certainly is taking a more hands-on approach to the unit. It's still Perry Fewell's defense. Rolle was hesitant to make any clear declaration when asked directly about the players having faith in the coaches, but made it clear that it exists.
"We go out there and play ball," he said. "Coaches coach and players play the game. That's always been my mentality. You watch things on film, it's simple details, minor things that we've been taught to do that we're not going out there and executing ... The coaches don't play the game."
Defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins also put the onus on the players. He said when the team goes over the corrections from each game, it's clear where the breakdowns occur in missed assignments that don't match up with what the coaches were teaching the players that week.
"The biggest thing is missed assignments," he said. "People not playing assignment-sound. Things that we should be doing easily we're just not doing."
Players attributed that to several things. Trust was a major theme, knowing that your teammate will do his job. Whenever the Giants have gotten into trouble in recent years, it's been because players were quick to abandon their own responsibilities in an effort to help elsewhere or try to make a spectacular play.
"Everyone doing their job," Rolle said. "You have to be selfish at this point. Every man has to go out there and do his job, do his assignment as best he can. When you have 11 guys doing that, you're going to have an effective defense."
The Giants haven't. And so they haven't.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
