Tom Coughlin post-game, 10.25.09

Very disappointed in this loss and give credit to the Cardinals. They are a good football team. I think anytime you turn the ball over four times you don’t have much of a chance to win and that is what we did tonight. We had far too many drives that ended three and out or with an inability to create any kind of different field position. It seemed like for an entire quarter we started at the twenty or inside the twenty. We never moved it ourselves, we never got it up off that mark. Our inability to overcome that was a major factor I thought. I thought our defense played hard, they were put in a lot of bad situations. We continue to have our red zone issues, as you know. Our return game wasn’t as strong as it was the week before; obviously they had worked very hard against that. They have a good, strong kicking game. The punter didn’t really give us a lot to work with and neither did (Neil) Rackers. I don’t have a whole lot to say at this point in time. I think we have, obviously, a lot of work to do. There is a lot of disappointment in that locker room. Many people played very hard. It is frustrating. Even at the end we had a chance to overcome it all and to take the ball down and score and put it in overtime, but we weren’t able to do that.

Q. On that last drive, it appeared there was face-guarding, did you get an explanation?

A. No. There was a helmet-to-helmet, too, but there was no explanation there either.

Q. What was your thought process behind kicking a field goal on fourth and one from the goal line?

A. We needed two scores.

Q. What did you see happen on Ahmad Bradshaw’s fumble?

A. The way I see it is he is an extra effort football player. Sometimes when extending himself, the ball leaves his side and when it does, it is vulnerable. Now he makes a great effort. I would never criticize anybody for the kind of effort that he plays with. He is all football player, he tries as hard as he possibly can in every situation. He never takes a back seat because of his size. He runs as hard as anybody else. He knows how to put his body low and squirm for extra yardage. There he was fighting to break tackles and by the time he had spun a few times and tried to elude, he had slowed himself down to where people came from around and the ball left his side and the ball got knocked out.

Q. You guys had a couple delay of games tonight. Was there something in the offense that contributed to that?

A. No. I think they were the result of trying to get some kind of a tip as to what the reality of the defense was doing and then they make the proper blocking call and I think he ran out of time a couple of times doing it.

Q. Was there something wrong with Jeff Feagles tonight?

A. No, there wasn’t. The strategy, and again, that would be me. The strategy, I didn’t want (Steve) Breaston to have good balls to return. However, when you are backed up like that we lost too much yardage. Trying to put it right on the sideline and just out of bounds we lost too much yardage.

Q. Did they surprise you with anything they did defensively?

A. No, they are a good defense. That is exactly how they play.

Q. What do you tell these guys after starting out so strong and now losing back-to-back games?

A. It’s the National Football League and you have to play very, very well in all three phases to have a chance to win any game. We have had a couple of situations where one side or the other has not played as well as we possibly can play. What solves that is all three phases getting back in sync and playing well together again. This week it was the offense that didn’t play well, wasn’t in sync, didn’t really have any rhythm for quite some time. Took advantage of a point blank range turnover and got the touchdown. Not enough consistency at all. The unfortunate thing is the third quarter again was what we thought we were going to be able to take advantage of with the ball being kicked off to us. The field position wasn’t great, but we didn’t do anything about that either. There was one drive we had a bad sack and put us second and eighteen or something of that nature and that was very difficult to get out from under.

Q. Was (Kareem) McKenzie close to being able to play at all?

A. We thought he might be, but when we worked him out before the game it was obvious that he couldn’t do enough to be dressed.

Q. What factor did that play not having him?

A. Any time a starter is out, he is out, but we have other good players. I am not sure exactly how Will (Beatty) played, but I do know he is a very talented young guy that needs to play.

Q. How did Eli throw the ball tonight?

A. Part of the offense’s inconsistency.

Q. It looked like they brought a lot of pressure and not just from the right side?

A. Oh no, no. They brought people. They are a pressure defense. I am not exactly sure who was at fault or if there was anyone, there may have been some that were hot. There was pressure, no doubt.

Q. On third and two, when you threw the deep ball to Mario Manningham on the sideline, was that the play call?

A. No, that was one of the options.

Q. Would you have liked to have seen your receivers make more plays on the ball when they were up in the air?

A. You always tell them, but I can’t say there was any one specific example of it. The ball to (Domenik) Hixon, both guys were going to go up for the ball, the defender was in just as good of a position as he was. It did become a wrestling match. The last one with (Antrel) Rolle on the sideline, Rolle actually did get both hands on the ball.

Q. How concerned are you?

A. I am always concerned when you lose. I am not sure what that word means but there are a lot of things that need to be addressed. I still say we have a good group of young men in the locker room. They want to do well, they want to play well, they have good attitudes, they work hard. For whatever reason, we have had two weeks in a row where one particular area has not performed very well. So, back to the drawing board.