NYG Postgame (vs. Washington) Transcripts: DL Leonard Williams
October 18, 2020
Q: What was the locker room like after the big win?
A: It was obviously exciting. We finally got our win. We’ve been working hard and finally got to see some of the fruits of our labor. It was obviously an ugly win, though. We obviously wanted to do a lot better. There’s still some football out there that we have to clean up. With a short week, we don’t have a lot of time to watch the film, but I think guys are going to try to take ownership and watch on their own to see what we can clean up.
Q: What did you see on the fumble recovery for the touchdown both from [Linebacker] Kyler [Fackrell] on the sack and then for [Linebacker] Tae Crowder, a guy who was the last pick in the draft, ‘Mr. Irrelevant,’ to score that game-winning touchdown?
A: It’s funny that you call him ‘Mr. Irrelevant’ because he’s been doing a lot for us. I think since he came in, he’s been the quiet guy just working hard and he slowly has worked his way up to playing with the defense. He’s built his trust up with his teammates and he went out there and made a huge play today, and it was possibly the deciding factor of the game. That late in the game when it was that tight, we needed a huge play and the defense delivered. It was huge for him to not just dive on that ball and be okay with that, he picked it up and made a big play and we needed it.
Q: How about the way your 342-pound lineman Dexter Lawrence motored to stop that two-point conversion?
A: I mean, that was a big play, too. Someone that big, I’d be kind of hesitant to take a hit from, a guy like that. It got the ball off of him and he didn’t have enough time to find an open receiver. He and [LB] Blake [Martinez] hit him pretty hard, so it was nice.
Q: After they scored, are you ready to sit down and see the extra point or did you expect them going for two?
A: I didn’t expect them to go for two, but we practice a lot of situations with [Head] Coach [Joe] Judge, so we kind of have to be prepared for a lot of different situations. I wasn’t quickly running off the field after they scored a touchdown, I was still kind of sitting on the field until I saw what situation was about to happen. They ended up going for two and it paid off for us, and we kind of needed that.
Q: You guys before halftime have struggled a little bit containing the other offense. What do you think has been the biggest issue there and how much of a point of discussion has that been on something you guys need to improve?
A: Looking at defense first, that has been one of our issues so far, giving up points at the end of the half. It’s definitely something that we need to work on. Going into the half with that extra seven points would’ve been better and it’s something that we need to work on.
Q: I’m curious if you guys have even thought about it yet, but you have one win and the leader of your division only has two wins at this point. What does that say to you and how much do guys realize that?
A: I mean, I don’t know how much the team talks about it, but it’s definitely something that’s running through my head a lot. Even before we got this win today, I’d seen that the Cowboys were leading in our division and they only had two wins, and it made me feel happy and feel confident that everything is still in front of us still. Even when we had no wins under our belt at the time, it still gave us some hope going forward knowing that was the case.
Q: Is it special for you guys to get that first win, not just for you guys as a team, but for your coach since it was his first win ever as a head coach?
A: I mean, it was special. It’s not like we won the playoffs, we still have a lot of work to do. No bragging rights or anything like that. You know, we’ve been working really hard through camp, we’ve been working really hard through the beginning of the season and we finally got that win under our belt. It was nice to see guys smiling in the locker room after putting in that much hard work. We kind of got tired of going into the locker room and seeing sad faces in the locker room. It goes to show everyone was happy for Coach Judge.
Q: Do you think this team is better than its record of 1-5? And do you think this win could serve as a springboard for the rest of the year?
A: That’s a good question. I absolutely think that we’re better than what our record shows. I’ve been on teams where we’ve gone 0-4, 0-5 in the beginning of the season and you can feel guys hanging their heads, you can feel guys giving up on the team and there’s a lot of division on a team with that. And I think even though we’ve been not winning as much as wanted to in the beginning of the season, we’ve been really tight in these games and guys are having each other’s backs and working hard. People are still coming to work every day expecting to win and I think that shows a lot of the type of guys that we have on this team. It makes me happy to be here.
