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Thursday Media Transcript: Head Coach Pat Shurmur

Eric from BBI : Admin : 10/4/2018 1:55 pm
Head Coach Pat Shurmur

October 4, 2018

Q: I know they were limited, but were (Olivier Vernon) and (Eli Apple) able to do any team stuff yesterday?

A: Yeah, they did team work yesterday. I guess we listed them as limited, but they were out there competing in team activities.

Q: (Cody) Latimer also?

A: Yeah.

Q: Are they significantly closer than last week at this point?

A: That’s fair to say, yeah.

Q: Are you counting on Sterling Shepard playing Sunday?

A: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Q: If you get (Olivier Vernon) back, how much of a help is he against a guy like Cam (Newton), who can make plays running the ball, from the pocket? How big of a boost would that be?

A: It’s good. If we can get OV back, it helps our defense. We add another player that can play from the edge, not only to set the run but also to pass rush.


Q: Is (Josh) Mauro going to be ready?

A: Yeah, he’s training, so there’s a chance we could bring him up. I think we need to make that transaction by Monday though, so we’ll just have to see. Right now, the game day roster is just a little bit up in the air with some of the guys coming back and then certainly you add Mauro to the mix.

Q: How do you view where your team is mentally?

A: Mentally, I think we’re a team that knows we’ve got to compete and work, and we’re fighting to get better and win a football game. That’s where we’re at. I know you guys are all constantly asking me that question, but we’ve coached long enough to know that, and there’s a lot of teams right now that haven’t won all their games, so we’re all doing the same things, trying to get ourselves rolling in the right direction. That’s the real part of this, and that’s where we’re at. We’ve got a really good locker room of guys that are competing and working and trying to do what we can to win a game.

Q: Is that a balance you have to consciously strike between panic and urgency?

A: You never panic, but there is always urgency, and right is right, and right is playing well and winning. There’s never panic. There’s always urgency. That’s a good question, it’s an easy one to answer.

Q: Are you sitting there second guessing yourself at all with the offense struggling, are you sitting there going ‘it’s going to come’?

A: No, I don’t second guess. As you move forward, just as much as the players are going through the things that they wish they might’ve done better, we do the same thing as coaches, and then you just keep moving. That’s really what you do. We don’t second guess, we just keep moving. We correct, and we’re always self-scouting ourselves, but you’ve got to be willing, too, to say in this scenario, we probably wouldn’t do this again, and then you move forward and learn from it. That’s the journey we’re all on.

Q: How’s Evan Engram doing? What kind of progress has he made?

A: Good. He’s made good progress. We’ll just have to see. He wasn’t involved in the team activities yesterday, though, but getting better.

Q: Is it hard to tell the difference between (panic and urgency) when you’re judging the team, or is it easy to spot, to know that guys aren’t panicking?

A: No, I just subscribe to the theory that you don’t panic. You stay calm but you’re always urgent.

Q: Do you see that when you’re looking at your players whether they feel the same?

A: Yeah, but the mindset of the coaches and the mindset of the veteran leadership is you just keep going and you don’t. That’s sort of where it all gets reinforced.

Q: With a veteran quarterback like Eli (Manning), when the offense isn’t going well, do you take a hands-on approach to let’s critically analyze what’s happening here, or do you trust?

A: No, there’s always conversation with the quarterback, and when you paint the general picture that it’s not going well – we haven’t scored enough points. There’s things in there that we build on to help us now then score more points, but I will never point to that when we don’t win a game. I will never talk about that. There are things we’re doing well, but there’s things we need to do better more often, and that’s the challenge and that’s the journey as you’re getting ready to go. And you always involve the quarterback – what did you see here, why did you do this? Give them a situation again, what did you do this? Here’s what we’d like to see you do. So there’s always feedback there. You never just bring a quarterback to the sideline and holler at him because he didn’t do it. What you do is you say, ok, what did you see? Why did you do it? Then you take it from there.

I liked his answer to the last question...  
Dan in the Springs : 10/4/2018 2:28 pm : link
mark of a teacher and not an over-reactive, lose your crap kind of guy. I know a lot of times we all wish the HC would lose it on the sideline and fire some guys up. Part of that is because we saw how easy Parcells made it look.

But this is a different day and age. Times have changed. Players don't react well to that stuff anymore. And more importantly, Shurmur should be taking the long view here four games into his Giants career - he's got to keep the mentality on improvements.

Now, get the offense fixed Shurmur. We don't need 50 ppg, but we'll need to score more than we have been if we want to win on Sundays.
When they say "We did some good things"  
NewBlue : 10/4/2018 4:16 pm : link
I understand that is the way you build toward improvement, these guys should not be negative nellies like some of us fans, but my reaction is.... of course you did SOME things right, but that is not good enough.

When I play golf and I get the occasional birdie, but still shoot high scores, I look at the big picture (I am a lousy golfer) how long does it take to know that what you are doing is not working? 4 wins in the last 20 games....no play-offs in how long? No 30 point games in 2 years....just ugly big picture....This is only Shurmer's 5th game, but it's getting late early around here.
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