Jerry Reese: 'We Didn't Close Games Out'

When New York Giants general manager Jerry Reese began his annual post-season press conference, he started off by apologizing to everyone for the team's 6-10 finish.

Reese said "What disappoints me the most ... was during the season we had the opportunity to win a lot of games. We were in a lot of games, but we didn't close games out. That was the most disappointing thing for me." He added "You know, in spite of the injury thing, everyone likes to throw the injury thing in there, but everybody has injuries. That's just part of the league, but we had chances to close games out as an offense, as a defense, and even on special teams."

Reese went on to question where the Giants' lack of a killer instinct comes from.

"It's a learned behavior, I think, that when you have the chance to close teams out, you get to step on their neck, you have to do that. If you don't, it's hard to win in this league. So you can go back and look at our schedule and look at the second half of some games where we were ahead or close or leading in some games and we didn't close games out."

Later on he went back to that sentiment.

"I said that because we were so close so many times." Reese said "And again, I say this every single year, when we win Superbowls or if we just went six and 10. It's a really close margin between teams that are in the playoffs and teams that are not in the playoffs. But it's a learned mentality, I think. Learned behavior that you have to close games out. We were so close, so many times. The offense could have closed some games out. The defense could have closed some games out. Special teams could have closed games out."

He continued to add that "Teams that aren't in the playoffs, it's not a big difference from teams that are playing in the playoffs. The ball can bounce a certain way, I've said that plenty of times standing up here at a press conference. You can get a call go your way or a call not go your way. So all those thing come into play. But at the end of the day, you have to have good personnel, you have to have good coaches, and you have to have a little bit of luck. I say that every single year"

The Giants' GM had plenty to say on the injury situation the Giants have been dealing with as well as the state of the roster moving forward.