Kehl wants to replace team's shampoo with gasoline
Giants head coach Tom Coughlin is entering the final year of his contract in 2010. Credit: David Pokress
Of course it wasn’t just the punting that was a problem for the Giants. Their poor coverage on the kickoff late in the second quarter set up the Panthers’ only touchdown of the game, a 50-yard drive in the final minute or so.
“We still need people to step up,” Chase Blackburn said. “Jason Pierre-Paul played a heck of a game on special teams. If you all watch 90 run down the field on kickoff and stuff, he did a lot of good things for us on special teams. Now we need more guys to step up, including myself as soon as I can get back healthy.”
Bryan Kehl called kickoff coverage “a high-performance industry.”
“All it takes is one person to be a little out of place or a little wider or too narrow and a good returner hits a crease and he’s going to get some yards,” Kehl said. “That’s basically what happened yesterday.
“As a kickoff unit we just need to come down with our hair on fire a little bit more, have a little more lane discipline, and you can clean that up.”
When it was pointed out that Kehl has a shaved head and no hair to catch on fire, he changed his metaphor.
“I’m going to have to come down with my eyebrows on fire I guess,” he said.
One of the other issues that Blackburn has seen is people not taking special teams seriously enough.
“People have to buy into these roles,” he said. “If you’re not a starter on the team that’s your role. We have a first-rounder, Jason Pierre-Paul, he bought into it yesterday. You watch him on film, you’ll see he bought into it.”
Kehl said he’s bought in too. He doesn’t have a choice.
“For me, unfortunately I don’t get to play on defense right now so that’s all I do,” he said. “I take pride in any play that I’m on (the field) for in the game. I have the mentality of I want to do the best anytime I step on the field. I don’t know if everybody has that mentality, but I know that’s what the coaches want.
“Know your role and act well thy part,” he said, paraphrasing a quote from a Shakespearean sonnet (or more likely the title of a book about LDS missionary work). “I guess that’s the key that everybody on the team needs to do.”
