NYG Postgame (vs. Jets) Transcripts: Head Coach Pat Shurmur
Opening Statement: Game One in the books. The first step in our journey this year. The four words that we use are team, tough, together, and finish. I think we displayed a lot of that. It’s a preseason game, certainly, and guys only played a portion of the game. There are many ways we can go with this. I don’t know how I feel yet until I watch the film. I do think that we competed hard, there was a great feeling on the sideline of guys supporting one another and coaching each other. It’s fun to win the game. It is what it is, it’s a preseason game, but there are plenty of good things that we can talk about. We made a lot of mistakes that we have to clean up moving forward. That’s sort of where I’m at, and I’m speaking to you about an hour too late. But otherwise, I don’t know if we had too many injuries to speak of, just (Jon) Hilliman. He got banged on the sideline there, (he has) a concussion. I’m sure something will pop up tomorrow. There are a lot of guys who got a lot of reps, especially the young guys, and I think they benefitted from it.
Q: To your point, and with Eli (Manning) only in for one series, would Daniel (Jones) have played longer if it wasn’t for the delay?
A: I don’t know that. Maybe. I wanted to start Eli, and he didn’t get much of an opportunity, it was three-and-out. We would’ve liked to keep the drive going, but I wanted to play Daniel behind the number one line. That was part of the plan.
Q: What about in terms of the weather?
A: In terms of the weather, would he have played more? Maybe. When he had that long delay, I felt like it was time then, even though it was eight plays, I felt like it was time. I didn’t want to go out there and restart the starters. We just made the switch to the twos.
Q: How do you feel Daniel did?
A: He got all completions and he got us in the endzone. That was a very effective drive. He did a good job. He had a couple mistakes in there that we’ll clean up. I guess to the naked eye it was a good job.
Q: What kind of mistakes can you have when you throw 5-for-5 right down the field like that?
A: He didn’t motion the tight end across on the first play. Those types of things. Things that we see. As I mentioned, to the naked eye, you possibly didn’t see.
Q: What are your thoughts on the offensive line?
A: Pretty good. Early on we didn’t get quite as much pressure as some had predicted that we get. I thought for the most part they did a pretty good job. Again, I am going to hold final judgment until I visit with you guys tomorrow at the 12:00 p.m. conference call. We’ll be able to watch the tape, get evaluated, and I’ll have a little better feel for it. The guys battled, and they kept the quarterbacks’ feet clean.
Q: You saw the pass interference rule change out on the field. What was your reaction going through that, seeing the video, and having the play turned?
A: Well, to the naked eye and at game speed, I thought it was a terrific play. When you slow it down, you see that he grabbed his wrist. That’s a great example of how a play is going to get changed. I am sort of glad that (Jets Head Coach) Adam (Gase) challenged it. It was good on his part. As soon as it was challenged, and had it been flipped we would have done the same thing, because as soon as it was challenged, my guys upstairs said, ‘we’re going to lose this.’
Q: What would you say to Giants fan who watched Daniel’s drive tonight and says, ‘I love this guy. I want to see more of him. I want to see this guy be our starter.’
A: I think, ‘Slow your roll.’ This is just his first go around. I think he did a good job. As I mentioned, all along he has done nothing to disappoint us, and certainly when you take the team down the field and score a touchdown—that’s a good start. It’s something good to build on. We have a lot of time left before we start playing games. Nothing at this point has changed.
Q: In the Jets’ first series, there were a couple of busts on the defense…
A: Yeah. We had a couple of things that we needed to get cleaned up, and then we did clean it up and we didn’t have those issues.
Q: How rare is it for a rookie quarterback to come into this situation here tonight and be so comfortable?
A: He looked pretty good, didn’t he? We sort of knew that when we picked him. How rare is it or how frequent is it? I don’t know. We are just going to stay in the moment and coach the guys we have.
Q: How easy is it to root for a guy like Corey Ballentine when you see him out there making plays?
A: I am a big fan of his, ever since we’ve done the evaluation on him and we picked him. If you’re going to play in this game and have success, you have to be tough and competitive. He is both. He’s had to go through some adversity here, but we’ve seen him compete and make plays in practice. I said it today when we were doing our in-house stuff. Some guys can learn it in the meeting room, but can’t take it to the practice. Some guys can. There are some guys who can take it to the practice field, then when they get out here, it just goes away on them. It was obvious that he competed out there just like he did on the practice field, and that’s a good thing.
Q: Using that analogy of what you’re saying going from the practice field to the game—based on what you’ve seen in training camp compared to what you saw today, would you say for Daniel Jones it’s been an equal transition from practice to the game, better or worse?
A: There weren’t any incompletions. I’d say that’s a pretty good job. He’s been checking off the boxes as we’ve went along. It seems to be surprising to people outside our building, but it’s not to us. I keep saying that. We’ll just see how far he takes this. But with regard to what’s going on, nothing has changed. He’s just trying to get better. We have what’s considered a Monday after the game tomorrow. They’ll have their day off on Saturday, and we’ll be back in pads on Sunday trying to make our team better.
Q: What was your take on your team’s first opportunity to tackle people?
A: I thought it was pretty good. We missed a couple open field tackles. There were a couple times we missed a tackle, but we were running through the football, so the second responders got the guys down. But low blocks, low tackles, and tackles in general—those are the three things you don’t get to practice on the practice field. You have to get them in the games. We probably could tackle better, but I thought for the most part it was a good start.
Q: When Jake Carlock had that pick-six, can you sum it up?
A: That was awesome, wasn’t it? He’s a team favorite because he’s so tough. When we had all of those injuries, those little nagging injuries at the first part of training camp, he took a ton of reps—more than the law allows. He’s tough, tough as nails. The sideline exploded when he scored. It was really a great feeling. He’s a fan favorite on our team.
