Winning is a great deodorant, and things certainly seemed a lot fresher for the New York Giants on Sunday night after their 23-10 victory over the Denver Broncos, their first of the season. Here is some of what was being said in a happy post-game locker room.
Coach Ben McAdoo on finally getting a win ...
“Our record wasn’t good, but that doesn’t mean we’re a bad football team. We’re a good football team. We just need to find paths to victory. We found one tonight. Now we have to start stacking ‘em.”
McAdoo lauding the play of his short-handed team ...
“Give credit to the players. They came out, they executed the plan at a high level. We knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty football game, but that’s our style. That’s how we feel like we have to win. Physical, heavy-handed. There were a lot of messes on the field. I liked it.”
Offensive lineman Justin Pugh on his beleaguered head coach ...
“He’s the same guy. He just keeps coming in. He’s pushing us hard. He’s a great coach. I’ve been around him for so long, I’m used to him. I’m just happy we were able to get this win for him and the staff, because we’ve really been so close. We really could be sitting here and looking at a different record right now. So to come out and beat a team nobody thought we had a chance to beat, it makes you feel good.”
Offensive lineman D.J. Fluker on the success of the running game ...
“It was what we wanted to do for a while. I’m happy we established it. It wasn’t perfect at times, but we just kept going and coach Sully (Sullivan) was like, ‘You might get two yards, you might get three yards, sometimes you might get four, we might get a big play, but you never know so we’re going to pound it until we figure out what we’re going to do. And that’s what we did. We went out there and pounded the rock. We passed it when we had to pass it. I think that was a great game plan by our staff. We did a great job.”
Eli Manning on only passing for 128 yards ...
“We knew it was going to be a little different type of game. We were going up against a good defense. We were going to have to run it and keep running it, and stick with it. I thought the guys did a good job. Broke a couple nice runs, hit Evan (Engram) on a couple shallow routes and got some big gains. … It’s not so much that the game plan was different. A lot of the same plays. It’s probably just a greater emphasis on sticking with the run and staying with it, because we got some new guys and different guys in different spots and the matchups we got. So I think we did a good job running the ball.”
Jason Pierre-Paul on Giants’ players not giving up ...
“This week you could tell the guys were hungry. We practiced with effort and intensity. Everything the coaches asked us to do, we executed it very well. It’s a game of football, we’re going to make some mistakes, but I think the effort outweighed the mistakes.”