WATCH: Coach Tom Coughlin's postgame reactions following the #Giants loss in New Orleans #NYGvsNO https://t.co/Bgk6j8XNPy
— New York Giants (@Giants) November 1, 2015
The New York Giants fought their way to the cusp on victory on Sunday despite a record-setting day by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, but watched the Saints pull off a a 52-49 final-play victory thanks to an unfortunate sequence of events over the final 36 seconds. Here is some of the reaction from Giants' players and coaches.
Tom Coughlin
The Saints piled up 614 yards of total offense, with Drew Brees throwing a record-tying seven touchdown passes and throwing for 511 yards.
"We couldn't stop 'em, we didn't stop 'em," Coughlin said.
When Trumaine McBride ran back a fumbled 63 yards to give the Giants a 49-42 lead Coughlin admitted that "I thought with the defensive score we'd win the game."
The Giants lost despite Eli Manning having six touchdown passes nd despite having the lead late.
"I thought offensively we did an awful lot of good things," Coughlin said. "We did an awful lot of good things to win, quite frankly, but not enough obviously in the end.
"We did pretty much everything we could do on one side of the ball. We also got a defensive touchdown," Coughlin said. "It should have been enough. It wasn't enough."
On the punt at the end of the game, Coughlin said "we kicked it in such a way that we should have had better coverage."
The 46-yard punt to the sideline by Brad Wing was returned 24 yards by Marcus Murphy of New Orleans. A 15-yard face mask penalty on Wing after Murphy's fumble was recovered by the Saints.
"We punted it for distance, we got some distance, they would have had five seconds left had we covered it. They would have been beyond midfield, they would have had one play, that wall. Fine," Coughlin said. "Didn't expect the guy to run the punt back, and then of course I didn't expect the penalty."
Eli Manning
There were 1,028 total yards, 13 touchdown passes and a defensive score.
"Yeah it was a wild one. I definitely don't know if I've played in one quite like that with that many touchdowns back and forth, Drew (Brees) was playing great, there were 12 touchdown passes, I guess 13 if you can't his interception to us. It was just a wild one, a lot of touchdowns, a lot of offense, I just wish we could have come out on top of it," Manning said.
"Their offense is always high powered, especially at home. It might a day where we have to score some points and I didn't know how many it would take. Obviously on offense we did some good things. We had some nice drives, we fought back after going down twenty-eight to fourteen and got a touchdown before halftime then came out and tied it up the first series of the second half. Back and forth a little bit more. We just ran out of time with 36 seconds left we had to convert on that third and five if anything just to not give them an opportunity. They had a good punt return and a penalty and then the field goal. It's a tough one to bite down right now."
Dwayne Harris
"We knew it was going to come down to who had the ball last. We knew we had to make plays. We knew we had to come out and get a win, but unfortunately the better team won."
Harris on not being able to catch a third-down pass that led to the final, ultimately disastrous, punt by Wing.
"On the last play, when we had the ball the final time, Eli (Manning) threw it up and I had a chance to catch it but it was a little bit out of my reach," Harris said. "Looking back I probably should've caught it. That's the kind of play I have to make. In the end things just did not go our way. And as a result they got a field goal out of it and won the game."
Trumaine McBride
"It was very disappointing for us (to lose). We had high expectations coming into this game. We've gotta re-group next week and come back home with a 'W' ".
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie
DRC seemed to indicate that perhaps the Giants were having a hard time with communication because the Saints were moving so quickly on offense the Giants couldn't get their calls made.
"I mean with the Saints, they call a lot of plays and get on the field fast and run them. That's their goal: for their offense to line up fast to get our defense off balance," Rodgers-Cromartie said. "And when they are doing that, we as a defense are looking at the sidelines looking for our calls. And when it's not coming in fast enough it's a challenge."
From Twitter
Giants safety Craig Dahl: "It wasn’t our greatest performance on defense."
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RVacchianoNYDN) November 1, 2015
CB Trumine McBride on the Giants' defense: "We had a lot of communication issues, which we can’t have." Heard that before. And here, in fact
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RVacchianoNYDN) November 1, 2015
Not sure if it is confusion, anger, frustration or all of above, but no one in NYG locker room could explain events re: facemask penalty
— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) November 1, 2015