Tom Coughlin
October 16, 2015
(Jon) Beason will be limited today. (Jonathan) Casillas, too. Get them on the field today. It’s a great day to practice.
Q: How’s Odell Beckham doing?
A: Good, he’s coming along.
Q: Coming along, but not practicing?
A: He’s not practicing.
Q: Rueben Randle came through yesterday alright?
A: Yeah, he did alright.
Q: And he’ll practice?
A: He’ll practice.
Q: How did Robert Ayers do yesterday?
A: He did okay. Yeah, he did okay. (George) Selvie did, as well. So they’ll practice today.
Q: You guys put a lot of time and effort into your special teams this year. So far, do you like what you see pretty much?
A: I do. I mean, there’s always room for improvement. We’ve been able to accomplish some things. I think Dwayne (Harris) is a little frustrated in terms of the return part of it overall, not because of anything, but obviously his offensive time is quite extensive—I think he likes it that way, too. Hopefully we just keep working at that and get better at that.
Q: And the punter (Brad Wing), you’re happy with him?
A: I am, I am. He’s done a nice job. He’s given us directional punting and he’s given us a ball to be downed inside—I like them inside the five, we have two inside the five.
Q: Harris’ involvement on offense is the reason Shane Vereen has been returning kicks?
A: Well, that’s part of it. Yeah, that’s part of it, but not the only thing. He would normally take both, but we tried to share the duty a little bit seeing what he would have to do.
Q: What have you gotten out of Brandon Meriweather?
A: Brandon’s been sharp. He’s back there, he’s a veteran player that’s directed traffic back there, he’s helped the young safety, he keeps everything communicated on both sides. He’s done a good job of that.
Q: When you go up against a rapid fire offense like Philadelphia’s, how important is it to have a guy who’s pretty much seen it all?
A: Well, very, very important. Obviously where your eyes are, how quickly you line up, how quickly you see what you have to see, knowing full well the ball is going to be snapped quickly. Knowing that a lot of what you’re dealing with is an attempt to distract, that’s where the veteran part of it helps.
Q: You haven’t allowed many deep passes downfield in that regard. What do you attribute that to, at least in the air?
A: Rush, coverage, people playing their positions well, the actual individual one-on-one coverages that you’re referring to. That’s been played well, too.
Q: I know you addressed it after the game, but your young receivers, when everybody was down in the game, can you talk about their contribution?
A: Well, they have to be ready to go, that’s the way we handle everything. They practice, they practice a lot, they get a lot of reps. Even when Myles (White) was on practice squad, he took reps on the other side of the ball because you never have enough legs, that’s just the way it is. You have to have a number of people that can run and can execute. So in that last critical drive when you looked out there and saw all those young guys, those guys you didn’t recognize, that’s part of it.
Q: Because of that small sample size, is there a little bit of, for lack of a better word, comfort level going into this week’s game? You don’t really know what’s going on with some of the other guys.
A: Well, that’s part of it. But the idea that these guys will continue to improve. They can be just more than someone who knows what to do, but can execute it.
Q: How do you prepare? Does preparation have to change or do you do anything differently when you have so many unknowns—not just at wide receiver—but at all these positions? How do you go about that?
A: Well, it doesn’t make it any easier, but nevertheless, the idea that we’ve always tried to follow is we have players on our team, we have good players, they’ve got to line up and go. Guys that can go have got to line up and do the job for us. That’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish.
Q: Different players have different strengths. How do you work around that?
A: Try to do or try to help set up whatever you’re planning to the strength of those players.
Q: You have leaned a lot on Kerry Wynn the last couple weeks with Ayers and Selvie out.
A: He’s played a lot and he’s played well, too.
Q: If they come back, does his snap count—obviously he’s not going to play every snap again.
A: Well, it will be affected to a certain extent, but that’s okay. The guy has played a lot of snaps the last two weeks. You certainly want those guys, especially here when you’re playing this kind of offense, you need to be able to have some fresh guys ready to go.
Q: Does your schedule stay the same as your normal week? GPS day tomorrow and then have your walk-through?
A: This is Thursday.
Q: I know. Is that how—?
A: Tomorrow is the recovery day and Sunday, yeah.
Q: Could Odell show you enough Sunday to get on the field Monday?
A: Sure. Sure.
Q: Their backs, I know they’re interchangeable, they have three good backs. But does Sproles bring a different dynamic?
A: Each one of them does. Each one of them does. Each one of them, I think, brings a different dynamic to it. Obviously the two UFA players they brought over were outstanding runners, they’ve always been. We saw Mathews a year ago in San Diego. We certainly have seen Murray a lot. Sproles continues, not only as a running back, but in the return game. He does an outstanding job.
Q: When you talked about Beckham you said he could do enough Sunday. Does he have to be back Sunday in order to get on the field in your mind?
A: It would be good if we knew in advance, so we could think a little about that. Yeah, that would be good. Does it preclude? No.
