Simms, Strahan talk about the state of the Giants

Today we had a chance to speak with Phil Simms and Michael Strahan about a lot of things. Even, believe it or not, their soon-to-be place in the team’s Ring of Honor, the actual reason for their cooperation.

Each spoke about leadership, which is such a key word for the Giants these days. We’ll get into that subject in tomorrow’s paper. But the two great former Giants also had plenty to say about the way the current team is playing on the field.

“I thought this year they were a team -- transition is not the word -- but I thought they had to re-identify themselves and after three games I don’t think they have,” Simms said. “They always laugh at me on Showtime because, and I guess this is true, I always see the good side to the Giants and always think they’re going to pull out of it. It’s hard to get away from that.

“They’ve made a lot of plays, but it’s not falling into place in order to finish off drives or whatever it is,” he added. “That’s what they’ve got to do here in the next few weeks. After about five or six weeks I always say in the NFL, you see what kind of team you’ve got, and then we’ll see how it plays out. I think the Giants, I’m still waiting to see them label it. What’s it going to be? Is it going to be an offense that runs it somewhat and it’s just going to be Eli throwing to these receivers, who I think are very talented, or is the defense … I really can’t label the defense. In years past I’d go, ‘Hey, this defensive line is just one of the best in football.’ So we’ll see how it goes the next few weeks.”

Simms also said that when the Giants won the Super Bowl a few years ago and the season that followed it, “it was about as close to bringing back memories as I can.”

“I usually don’t think back, ‘Oh, they remind me of us.’ but their offensive and defensive lines were just, at times, so dominant that I’d go ‘Wow, that truly is the Giants tradition.’ Just to be big, physical, and just grind people up, just wear them down. They’ll hang in there and fight for a while, but are they willing to fight for the whole four quarters? And that’s what I saw when I watched them. Of course, I don’t quite see that now. I do see glimpses of it. I watched Eli Manning get great protection at times this past Sunday against a defensive front that I thought was as good as anybody in football – the Tennessee Titans – and the defensive line, sometimes I see them make plays and I go ‘Boy, it’s there’ … I really can’t say that they’re not getting enough pass rush, that the d tackle is not getting penetration, I’m not going to go into it in depth like that. When I still look at the team, though, I look at some of those defensive linemen and I think that they do have the ability or the prospects of being pretty dominant.”

Strahan agreed.

“They have a lot of talent,” he said of the defensive line. “When I watch them, I watch Kiwanuka and Cofield play and they do well. When I watch Osi and Tuck, they’re playing well. They’re putting in a lot of effort out there. Sometimes, you don’t always have the stats and the numbers. Stats come and go. The shameful thing about playing defensive line is that if you don’t have sacks, then you’re not playing well. I think that’s a big load of garbage because there are so many who get a lot of sacks who can’t play their way out of a paper bag. So, I look at the guys and I see them make some plays and trying, but sometimes results aren’t there.

“Should they be the best defensive line in the league if you go player for player? They’re about as talented if not more talented than anybody else. It’s hard to sit here and say what should you do, because at some point either it happens or it doesn’t. We hit a very hot streak (in 2007), and our confidence was at an all-time high. That’s what you need first before anything else, you need confidence. I think those guys are fighting for it now as a team, not just as a defensive line.”

Strahan also said that Tom Coughlin, the coach at whose name he once shuddered, is still the man to lead the Giants.

“I read and see all this stuff, and the thing is it’s been an evolution of Tom Coughlin and the evolution of being to the point of where I felt early on it was almost unbearable to the point where you realize (now) that he’s right,” Strahan said. “It’s like my parents. My parents told me so much stuff that I would go to my grave at that point in time (thinking) that they were wrong. And now I look back and see how right they were. He was right in his approach, how he came to the Giants and what he was trying to do and how he was going to set it up. He was right in his approach when I left and he thought that he could back off now because the guys I’ve got here, I know, are capable of what they are doing. Now, all of the sudden, he can’t coach? I don’t think that’s the case.”