What were the New York Giants and Jacksonville Jaguars saying after Sunday’s 20-15 loss by the Giants in the season-opening game for both teams? Let’s find out.
Saquon Barkley on his touchdown ...
“It was amazing; it was a great feeling, but it was a feeling that came and went. One touchdown is not going to win the game, and that touchdown didn’t win the game this week, but to get in there, it was a dream come true to find the end zone. I did keep the ball, but it was just like ‘Move on, next play’, and find a way to get in there again.”
Barkley on the fourth-down run where he came up short ...
“Fourth-and-one is always tough to get, especially when you have a defense like that. Fourth-and-one mentality is you have to get it no matter what by any-means-necessary. I jumped and I thought I had it, I thought I did enough to keep the sticks moving, but I didn’t and that is something where there’s no excuses that I’m a young player, and I have to realize how important that is.”
Jacksonville coach Doug Marrone on Barkley ...
“We knew he was a really good player coming in. It’s one of those games where you feel like you’re doing a good job, you’ve got a lot of population to the football, you got a lot of people trying to bring him down. Then all of a sudden, bam! He breaks that, whatever it was, 68-yard run ... he’s a heck of a player.”
Jacksonville’s Calais Campbell on Barkley ...
“I knew right away. The first run and the first couple of times I tackled him, I said, “this kid has something.” Obviously, you see it on tape, but we didn’t get to watch a lot of tape on him. It’s his college tape. Coming into the NFL against a team like ours, and making some of the plays he made, that kid’s going to be special. I traded jerseys with him after the game because I was like, “Okay, if he can stay healthy, he might one day be a Hall of Famer. So now, I’ll get his jersey when he’s young.”
Landon Collins on the play of the defense ...
“... we were playing a good offense and their run game is very hard to protect and we were playing good against it so we can definitely build on top of that and just make sure we get the communication right and on the same page as always.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/12878495/usa_today_11216503.jpg)
Odell Beckham Jr. on his matchup with Jalen Ramsey ...
“He’s like a brother to me, we kicked it over the offseason, we talked back and forth. He’s a competitor, I’m a competitor, I love the way he plays, I love everything about his game. It was fun to go out there and compete against, if not the, one of the best in the league, hands down.”
Ramsey on facing Beckham ...
“Like I said on Thursday when I was talking to the media, that’s not what it was about. I was shocked when you make it just about me and Odell. It was 11 vs. 11. I knew I would be on him a fair amount, but I wasn’t on him 100% of the time and I knew it was going to take all 11 guys on the defense to get the job done so that’s what we did out here and we got a good win.
Janoris Jenkins on building off the loss ...
“I think we all can build off of it—defense, offense and special teams. Once we get in the film room, we’ll see what critiques we have to make and we’re just going to come out and keep hustling every day.”
Pat Shurmur on the struggles of the offensive line ...
“We battled a really good defense. You’re looking at a top-10 defense and we battled them and I thought they fought throughout the game. We can probably all point to individual bad plays by everyone, me included, so I feel like they battled and we’ve just got to go back and correct the mistakes that maybe showed up and get ready to play Dallas.”
Shurmur on Beckham’s return ...
“I thought he competed throughout, put him in a lot of different situations and I think it’s a good idea to throw him the ball. We threw to him a lot and he made a lot of plays.”
Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles asked if he thought he was going to score on his 41-yard run ...
“No, not once. This isn’t high school. There was no way. I got 30 yards, then the hamstrings locked up and it was time to get out of bounds.”