Tom Coughlin Quotations

The personality of the quarterback, he has a large plate and he is going to lead by example and by his play. That's basically where our football team is. Our players do rally around Eli and his play and that's the position he has taken and that's the way it should be.

We're not going to please everyone and we know that. Sam Walton had said you shouldn't worry about what's written in the newspaper. You should focus on the customer. At the same time, we also need to tell our story better.

We're going to look at it and tear it down every way we possibly can and learn from it and teach from it and then move forward, ... Hopefully, it is one game.

Usually if you win a game, two phases have played very well and, somewhere along the line, one of the phases is not able to, ... On a day like today when all three played extremely well - I don't want to say it's rare; I'd like to see it happen more often - but it's difficult to do.

We're back to Square One on punt returns.

We knew when we were coming into this that it would be a tough game, and it was. It was a very physical game.

This was not an easy decision. I regret the embarrassment this matter has caused my family and friends and I thank them for their support, love and friendship.

We ran the ball last year on paper well, but some of the situation stuff wasn't as good, ... I think we need to be able to run the ball when we want to run the ball.

We're confident he can perform the responsibilities that we are going to ask him to do, ... Maybe in another month we might add to that.

Let's talk about winning. Let's talk about winning first before we talk about anything else,

Let's talk about winning first before we talk about anything else. We need to win some games. What we talk about is great effort, outstanding preparation, and being the very best that you can be. If you are as good as you can possibly be, the rest of that stuff will take care of itself. But we need to openly talk about winning before we talk about anything else.

Let's talk about winning first, before we talk about anything else, ... We need to win some games. That's what I talk about. ... We need to openly talk about winning before we talk about anything else.

Let's get this thing settled so we can make concrete plans about how we're going to move forward. It's not a comfortable feeling for any club. We need this to be settled and we need to move forward as a league. We need to be able to utilize all the abilities that we have in our planning.

Nothing is ever easy. Obviously we had some big plays tonight, and we needed them.

Carolina is a tough, physical, well-coached team. We earned the right to play this game at home, and that is very important.

Fumbled the opening kickoff, had a punt return against for a touchdown, a kickoff return against, an interception when we're knocking on the goal line, five turnovers. Just beyond belief that we would play that poorly.

If you are as good as you can possibly be, the rest of that stuff will take care of itself. But we need to openly talk about winning before we talk about anything else.

He was an outstanding mentor for Eli all the time he was here. When he was starting and then when Eli became the starter, he was still the same thing. Kurt helped Eli tremendously. The most enthusiastic person on our sideline was Kurt Warner.

He was a little sore. He hasn't played in almost a full season.

He's back to gritting his teeth. He's got a job to do and he's trying to do it.

He has a sprain and bruise to the inside of his elbow, ... We'll see how he progresses next week.

He had a couple plays I thought were good and a couple there would be a little correction on, ... He's continuing to widen the scope of responsibility and I like what he's doing.

He gets in these situations and he fights his way out of it. He comes over to the sidelines and he's the one who has the most poise.

He does not have any type of debilitating injury. There is trauma in the neck area and he is sore.

He looked OK. He took most of the reps throughout practice. He threw the ball well, he was sharp with it and he was quick in his movements. I was pleased with the day.

We've got to have drives that don't falter out. That's one of the major things we talked about going into this game. It's a matter of consistency. I thought there was improvement in the passing game, but it's still not there.

He's a football guy, ... He's always around the office. He's always looking at tape. He's always grabbing guys and talking football.

His status is going to be week to week, and I think his availability for this week would be doubtful at best.

He's fine, he's going to be fine. It will take a little time. There are a lot of things to adjust to. Obviously all the new things thrown at him, the different receivers, the different people working with him, the high grass. It will come. It will be fine.

He was squeezing my hand and moving his legs around. I really don't know what the blow was. It may have been a side blow that just shocked him off to one side. We haven't heard anything more from the medical people, so we're standing by on that.

He's playing strong; he's in very good shape, ... We'll see, you never know. As the season moves on, he may want to put a couple of pounds on. But right now, he's gone the entire preseason this way. He feels good at that weight, so good.

He is starting to go through the throwing motion, ... He's doing soft-toss, not for any distance.

Kevin's a great coach and the hands-on guy that's taken Eli through all the mental processes, ... Being his position coach, it's Kevin's responsibility to teach him how to conduct his business and how to accept his role as a team leader.

I think it's a good thing to be able to win and to put points on the board and to not have our best day at quarterback. It only gives me more excitement about the future, about game in and game out getting Eli back on track and continuing to play very well on defense and on special teams.

It came from the gut. We'd driven the ball and I felt like we needed to come away with a touchdown there.

I think it's a pretty remarkable statistic. I don't care if you're a punter.

I thought Brandon made a great effort, ... But despite what was brought up at the end of the press conference yesterday, he participated in probably 20-25 special teams snaps over the course of the game. So he was involved, and he had been hit. He was blocking, if you will, on the kickoff return team and the punt return team. So he had opportunities to compete.

I think we'll be able to sort it out, ... Don't forget, we have an opportunity to play on Monday Night football, and that's a great opportunity for us, as well as for the Saints. We'll put ourselves in the right frame of mind for Monday night.

I think what I would prefer to look at as a team is that they've only given up 28 sacks on the year. They know how to protect the passer and they know how to scheme to protect the passer.

I was kidding Eli in there that now I guess we have to wait until the middle of the fourth quarter until we mount a drive of some kind.

Our passing game wasn't very good. We've got to improve that area of our game.

Sure I've changed with them, ... I know them very well, and they know me. It's just a product of the opportunity we've had to work together. It gets better.

Sure, I'm impressed. It's all a matter of players believing in the system that's put on the field. Tim's approach is a positive one. He's very decisive in his teaching methods and his approach to game plan. He believes the plan will succeed, and that the players who execute it will give us a chance to win.

Thankfully, we have some guys who have both feet on the ground.

I was upset because in the true concept of team it is not about pointing the finger. It is not about that. We are all in this together. We have tried to engender this thought process since we have been here. Occasionally out of frustration, something happens where someone says something that they haven't thought out well.

I think our passing game was not very good. I think our offensive line performed very well and we ran the ball with consistency. But we have work to do with some of the basics with regard to our passing game.

I think he'll deal with it the same way he's dealt with everything that has come his way at a young age, and he'll deal with it with class and he'll have poise about it. We're certainly not going to make an issue about it here. We can read and we listen to the comments and what the speculation is, but I'm sure that he'll handle it in stride just as he's dealt with the fact his home happens to be in New Orleans, too.

I think Luke will be ready. He has practiced every day this week. He took the majority of the snaps, too. He says he feels good.

That was disappointing, no doubt. We practice the ball on the minus-1 all the time. We had some confusion. But that's how you win and lose in this league.

That's been a goal that we set two weeks in a row, really, ... We really aggressively attacked that by challenging our defense with some percentage numbers that were way down, that would cause that kind of a holy-cow kind of an approach, where you'd look at it and say, underneath such-and-such percent. We have been able to go out and do that, and of course that's the key thing now.

We just asked him to take pride in himself and prove to me that he's a football player. He worked every day from the time I got here, so he has earned that, and I'm glad to see him do well tonight.

We earned the right to play this game at home, and that's very important. Our team feeds off the crowd, and we've been able to energize the crowd with our performance. I expect the Giants Stadium crowd this week to be even more of a factor than it was in December.

We earned the right to play this game at home, and that is very important. Our home crowd has unquestionably been a factor in our performance. I expect the crowd this week to be even more of a factor.

We earned the right to play this game at home, and that is very important. As we have come down the stretch, starting with the Dallas game in early December, our home crowd has unquestionably been a factor in our performance. Our team feeds off the crowd, and we have been able to energize the crowd with our performance.

We'll have a count in the back of our head about how many throws per day, but I don't see it as any build up. I mean, we've got to go. We have to get ready.

We didn't run the ball like we really thought we might. We didn't have any balance. We didn't make any first downs. We got no rhythm going offensively.

The poise in the noise, the false starts we had...That's ridiculous,

The penalties are an issue that we have talked about until, quite frankly, we are blue in the face, ... And we will continue to do that. They are very, very bothersome. They are a nemesis to us.

We're excited about this pick. It's truly a valuable pick.

We didn't stop anything. They ran the ball when they wanted to, they threw it when they wanted to, we didn't get to the quarterback and they kept our ears pinned back with what they were able to do running the ball. I was disappointed with everything defensively.

We didn't stop anything. They ran the ball when they wanted to and they threw the ball when they wanted to.

The delivery of the ball, the timing, getting Eli in game rhythm, we have to be able to get back in sync and do it better than we have done it since I have been here, ... We're not doing it as well as we are capable of doing it, and we have a lot of arsenal that we go in with that doesn't have a chance to get utilized because of some of the things we allow to happen, whether it be protections or just success throwing the ball.

We were very much aware of our two owners and their illnesses, ... We knew that this game was a very important game, that they both would be tuned in. And we wanted to make sure that they were smiling.

First and foremost, he's an outstanding athlete. He has to be or else he wouldn't be in this position. He takes great care of himself. He's a competitor by nature. He has a great sense of humor, which I think keeps everything in perspective for him, good or bad. But, to play as long as he has played and to be on the verge of breaking these records is a tremendous accomplishment. For someone to be in a position that he's in and having done this for so many years and continue to be excited about coming to work every day and the opportunities he has is really a remarkable thing.

There is nothing that has surprised me, because I think I know the player and he's practiced well and performed well in games. He's done a lot of good things and hopefully there are a lot more good things to come.

We had thrown the interception and didn't think we would ever get the ball back,

We're very fortunate to have Eli. We've pressed on through some difficult times his rookie year into this season. He's improved and gotten better as we've gone along here. We've gotten him great experience; experience under fire, obviously, and some very, very big games. And he's performed well.

We didn't know what to expect (with Collins) and we were prepared one way or another.

Eli was extremely poised. He knew exactly what he was coming into, he was focused and he didn't let any of the noise or anything bother him. He played well enough. If we'd done some things on defense, he played well enough for us to win.

There's no question he can play a lot better.

The roster is never something that's 100 percent predictable. So anyone on the outside trying to do that will be surprised by some of the people we have on the final roster. It's a constant shaping and molding and that's how it finally emerges.

I understand. He takes everything he does to heart. It all bothers him and you want that in a player. You want someone who feels accountable or responsible for the errors they make. But you also need to move ahead to the next play. What he's saying is 61 could have been 95, and we're all trying to get there with him.

The thoughts that come to mind about that day are deep. They are very personal. They come to mind probably every time we spend time with our son. But it's also a time of deep reflection for what it meant to our country. We'll experience all of those things before Sunday.

No question in our mind that we know what we are getting into in Washington this weekend. It's going to be an NFC East showdown game, played in the latter part of the season with an awful lot on the line.

Storage is no longer in the background. It's not just nice to have; it's a must-have.

No way were we going to lose at home on this date, for this great city, ... There was no way.

Your gut tells you as a competitor to go for it -- do this, do that, do that -- but in many, many situations, I have seen it go both ways, ... To not have those points at the half would not have been right, either.

They're using them very well. Both compliment each other and they both seem to have outstanding yardage, yet neither one of them has an overly amount of carries.

There was no fight. Were there discussions? There were discussions all week. I talk to a lot of guys, but that's strictly player-coach.

There isn't any question about the rule: If a player goes out of bounds, he can't be the first to touch the ball.

It wasn't what they did, it was how they did it. They executed very well. And we didn't execute on defense. They blocked us fairly efficiently, and we didn't make plays when we had a chance. It was just a very poor performance from our defensive team. We're going to break it down and look at it every way we possibly can and learn from it and teach from it and then move forward and hope it is just one game.

It was a very poor performance by our team. We fumbled the opening kickoff, had a punt returned against us for a touchdown, a kickoff returned, an interception when we were knocking on the goal line. It's beyond belief that we would play that poorly.

It was a very poor performance by our team, ... We fumbled the opening kickoff, had a punt returned against us for a touchdown, a kickoff returned, an interception when we were knocking on the goal line. It's beyond belief that we would play that poorly.

It's a process that is part of our game. The only fortunate thing about it is that there are so many teams and so few players that sometimes you end up either having those people back or playing against them.

I told the players that they should be proud of being the team on record that accomplished this for our beloved owners.

For a long way into the game Tim played well, he did a lot of good things. Whether he tried to press, whether he tried to do more than he should have ... . I'm not disappointed in the way Tim played, but I was looking for a continuation of the kind of start he made.

It should be an interesting morning for me.

It's been a tough year and it's not getting any easier. We've heard all kinds of negative things, some of which are blatantly false. All this negative publicity impacts people who interact with Wal-Mart.

It's been a tough year and it's not getting any easier, ... We've heard all kinds of negative things, some of which are blatantly false. All this negative publicity impacts people who interact with Wal-Mart.

It's not an east time for the players. It's not an easy time for the coaches,

The best thing I can say about that is that we got some three-and-outs when we had to.

Steve Smith had a great year, no question. Even more so when you think that every team has it on their checklist to do something about Steve Smith. The other day we gave up a lot of passing yardage to some outstanding receivers. But our No. 1 thing will still be to stop the run. That's where we start.

Take nothing away from Dallas, but we had opportunities and didn't take them,

It's amazing to me that with the distance that has to be covered when it's third-and-12 or third-and-13, that we can't do a better job of defending. It certainly is discussed an awful lot, brought to a lot of people's attention. And it will continue to be ... If you want to use that word frustrating, that's it.

It seems as if each practice one does something outstanding to get your attention, ... This was a pretty good day for Jesse. Tim was pretty good last night. We're trying to get more snaps for Jared.

It was a choice that Kerry made that was best for him and his family and his future. And so we tried to do the best we could with it.

They just threw the ball, and we had difficulty with their receivers. We had trouble defending it without a doubt.

It was a frustrating day, without a doubt. In overtime we were never able to get the ball. It was just a very disappointing performance on our part.

Any time there's a player of that caliber out there, you have to give it due diligence. Beyond that, we haven't done a whole lot of discussing it.

That's a gut-wrenching way to lose a game. It's just an empty feeling when you lose like that.