You're listening to the Believe in Giants podcast with two-time Super Bowl winner Carl Banks and the voice of the Giants, Bob Papa.
And we welcome you to another edition of Believe in Giants presented by FanDuel. Bob Papa along with Carl Banks as the Giants head into the five with a 2-1 record. Two and one for the second year in a row. And Carl, we sat through that disaster last night. Mike Kafka spoke with the media earlier today. Joe Schoen speaking with the media. You know, you're not going to get much out of this. I mean, they're going to play it pretty much straight up. But um...
After all these games against playoff teams, division leaders, quality teams, and blowing all these leads, I think the Giants had built some street cred with NFL fans and Giant fans. Like, man, if they could just close these games out, they're exciting to watch. They're fun to watch. They got these leads. How are they going to close it out? Let's get rid of the DC D. And then last night was like a let go of the rope. I mean, it was ugly on a lot of different levels. The defense looked worse. The offense couldn't sustain anything and, you know, it was just one of those deals where the game flipped in one moment. Theo Johnson's drop touchdown pass. Then the Coup fiasco and then New England right down the field, a touchdown. Oesi fumbles the kickoff. Defense holds them to a field goal and then the Giants elect to punt near the end of the second quarter down by 20 and that was it.
Well, let me just explain how that happened. Uh, you know, the Giants have played a lot of teams that are, I want to call, for lack of a better term, newfangled coaching philosophies, right? And then they went up there to New England and they physically got their asses beat, strategically got their asses beat, and mentally got their asses beat. Because you know why? You have a guy that stood on that sideline who you talk about the Giants let go of the rope. They gave the Giants this much rope because what they did in New England is what he learned how to play football and how he learned how to coach football is what I'm talking about Mike Vrabel. We're not going to beat ourselves. We're not going to let our limitations be exposed and we're going to be a tough-minded football team that's not going to make mistakes. These guys, he probably walked into his room and said, 'These guys are flying high and they think X, Y, and Z.' They executed their game plan from special teams through every other phase of the game. Giants, on the other hand, it's all, you know, all hunky dory, right? We'll go out here. We'll make it exciting. Guess what? Your quarterback runs, he gets his ass knocked off, right? Hey, we tried to tell you quarterback, don't bring that shit over here. If your foot's in bounds, we're sending you five yards. Oh, and by the way, Theo Johnson, this is... Don't do... Must be careful because I am fans of these kids. But here's a lesson. When you want to play tough guy, you better be a tough guy 10 toes down, right? Guy knocks your quarterback five yards into the sideline, you come rushing in there, you get a penalty for what? Putting a fingernail on a guy. Like, if you're going to rush in to defend your guy, they better be pulling you off of a guy, not running in to push a guy and then you fall back like you don't want to get a penalty. You make the decision to defend your quarterback, then you go defend him. And that goes for all of these other guys who running around here pillow fighting. No, they just knocked your guy five yards out of bounds. Yeah, your guy made a bad decision, but if you want to rush in there, you better rush in there and throw a punch. You better rush in there and make the penalty worth it because right now what you did, you rushed in there and did this and still got a penalty. That's not toughness. And they intimidated you. They took everything that Mike Vrabel, that is his constitution. That's how he was raised in this game. He's coaching it and his players are reflecting that. You look at their play. Don't tell me they got better, they got 11 win talent, right? Center guard gone. Center guard gone. You wouldn't know. Oh, the guard. The guard and the left tackle. They're missing their entire left side. Guard tackle gone. You wouldn't know it. You would not know it. This ain't no shot at nobody, but your best players were on the field against their two backups. Don't know. Got to watch film. But you didn't know that their guys weren't exposed. Just put it that way.
Yeah. I made this reference to you on the radio during the broadcast last night or maybe it was during a commercial break and I said, maybe it was on the podcast too last week when I said think about all the games the Giants unfortunately over the last two years have played without Andrew Thomas. And you always talked about...
Don't make this a Jenga piece. And the offensive line...
The last two years was a train wreck when Andrew Thomas was out, right? And what did teams do? They exploited whoever the Giants had at left tackle. And when the right tackle was hurt, they exploited whoever was in at right tackle. And last year when they had to move Eluemunor, they exploited Evan Neal and they exploited everybody else that the Giants brought in.
How is it that you go into this game, they got the rookie left guard and the rookie left tackle? Left tackle was the fourth overall pick in the draft. He started every game for them this year. How did it look like they didn't miss a beat? Didn't miss a beat. Now, Josh McDaniels did some game planning around that, but there were plenty of dropbacks where Drake Maye could have sat there and eaten a cup of clam chowder since we were in New England last night. Like how is that possible? Um, I, if you guys want to know what toughness looks like, not that fake tough guy shit, New England Patriots showed you just why they are where they are. Like their players start to finish, special teams, defense, offense, they exuded toughness without even having to pump their chest. They just systematically pounded you, pounded you, pounded you. They exploited all of your weaknesses and where you thought you were tough, they just brought more tough guys to you. Their guys were flying around. You know, our guys were hoping not to miss a tackle, right? They're hoping to improve on last week's missed tackles and not miss as many, right? They were mentally tougher, physically tougher, strategically better. And I just don't understand how as an organization, is there a kicker black cloud over this franchise? Like you can't find a kicker. And I've been doing this a long time playing and covering this game. I have never seen what I saw from Coup last night. He stopped two feet short of the ball. And I've seen kickers slide. I've seen kickers take a divot and still hit the ball. This was the darnedest thing. And I'm just like, what? Where are we getting these guys from? Like clearly that's the slate that has to be wiped completely clean and you better start scouring the college ranks and bring in and just create competition because this mess right here is just not acceptable. But...
Yeah, I mean he said on the hold that the ball slipped a little bit and when I watched it again that may or may not be the case, right? Which messed up his timing. But like in the name of Matt Bahr, sometimes it ain't perfect. Just kick it. Like it was like...
Lawrence Tynes had some things to say about it too. And he didn't quite mention the ball wasn't perfect. Lawrence like, 'Oh, let me kick it.' No, maybe I won't. That it just looked crazy. That operation has to get fixed. But of all the losses, because I want Giants fans to really marinate on this. Of all the losses and all the ways that this team has lost, even Philadelphia who physically did some things, this is what you saw in New England is what a foundation looks like that is moving towards a championship. Like they ain't perfect, but they were disciplined. They were tough. They executed and they did not let you exploit their weaknesses. That's what your team should look like. Patriots football is back. That's what Patriots football is. Go ahead.
Joe Schoen was asked about, you know, hey, we're two and 11. It's not good enough. We all have to do a better job. We're going to re-evaluate everything. And, you know, it's not the standard. What is the Giant standard? And I think this is a legitimate question right now to ask. What has the standard become? I know what it once looked like. I watched you in it. I watched Tom Coughlin have a certain standard and accountability. Vrabel had a quote. I was reading something where he was interviewed and this wasn't this week. This was maybe after he first got the job or during training camp. And he said, 'Look, I was an ass as a player. I played a certain way. I was an ass.' I'm paraphrasing. He goes, 'And as a head coach, I'm an ass. And sometimes I'm the good kind of ass. Sometimes I'm the bad kind of ass, but I'm consistent. I'm an ass.' And that and everybody around knows what is tolerated and what's not. So like you know this whole Abdul Carter thing, what is your standard, right? How is it that two weeks ago you bench him for the first series because of a disciplinary thing and how is it that two weeks later he commits it again which cost him a first quarter which means it's been going on forever. Like where was the standard? That's why like Carl you and I have talked about this. I don't know what they're going to do with their head coaching search, but I really feel like, hey, you might bring in one of these hot shot coordinators that names have been thrown around that have never been head coaches. How do you know it's not going to be the same as it's been with new head coaches? It could be Ben Johnson in Chicago. And that's the very beginning of the chapter because everybody felt that Brian Daboll was that in 2022. You see how fast it turns.
Mike Vrabel brought a resume and a tried and true standard. Patriots football is back. You see it, right? It resonates with the standard that was there when Mike Vrabel was there. You want to talk about a standard, right? This is not insensitive to any of you parents out there. Now, I have young kids. I have a grandkid. My kids are out of their 20s now. I have two that are almost out. Fuck the coddling of professional athletes. Respectfully, when Joe Schoen says we're dealing with a 21 year old, yes, you are. When you have a player development department, it's about five or six people. And I feel for them because they got to deal with these different personalities. This is not an extension. Professional sports, hear me out, is not an extension of high school. It's not an extension of Twitch. So, stop treating it that way. You leave Twitch to come into the building and now you're a pro. You're a man. Don't coddle. I get it. I understand the sensitivity that these guys have to deal with, right? But this ain't when you walk in the building, Twitch is over. There's no more Twitch. When you walk in the building and you sit in a meeting and you go to sleep, that's what you do when you're live streaming watching Kaizenette. This ain't that. You want to be a streamer, you want to live that lifestyle. The Giants are not financing that. They're financing your skill set. They're financing you to be a great player, to be part of a standard of something. And this is just not Abdul Carter, right? And I know you guys are watching this, but I walk in the building now, everybody's mean mugging me because I said something that everybody saw anyway, right? I don't care. Right? Be better. Right? If I call you out because you made a bonehead penalty that didn't cost your team the game, but it didn't allow you to win it. Don't see me face to face and I say hello to you and you whatever. Okay, cool. But the standard is the standard, right? You want to learn how to work.
You're part of take my D. It's going to take a while.
It's going to take a lot.
I understand that. But I'm just telling these young men what it takes to be a pro. You see, look at what New England just did to you. That should feel worse than any other loss that you have on your resume. Even to Philadelphia because the New England Patriots systematically dismantled and beat you with a sledgehammer. There was nothing fancy about it. It just looked like old Patriots football. Just good foundation, good discipline. No frills. Their guys just went about it blue collar, right? But that foundation, folks, that started in East Rutherford. That guy who took that expectation and that standard there, he learned it and forged it in East Rutherford. You look like an expansion team compared to what they're doing. And we keep talking about the standard, getting back to Giants football, but then and I get it. There are sensitivities that you have to deal with with 21 year olds, but there also has to be a line when you cross over into this building. Here's our expectation of you. And I want to ask the young man, any of them, what do you want to be? Do you want to be great or you just want to make some money? Right. I brought you in as a free agent to be a leader of my team because I have a lot of young kids that can learn from you. It's not okay that you made that mistake because that reflects negatively on the other guys. I am the biggest defender of these players, right? But when I defend and I celebrate you, when I criticize you, not that I give a shit that you're mad at me, but just ask yourself why, right? I want y'all to be good. I want you to have a standard. I want you to have an expectation of going into a game not just wanting to tackle better, right? Going into a game not just looking not to be as bad as you were the week before, right? That's losing football. You're hoping somebody else makes a mistake so that you can look good. I want your special teams that's normally ranked high to have a sense of pride to want to do that every week.
Yeah. Not to give up the opening kickoff and let New England start at the 49 yard line.
The coverage teams have been one of the bright spots, but then they decide every once in a while to crap the bed. Chanty Goston, you've been out for a while. They put you down there. Guess where that big return broke? Smaller guy blocking a bigger guy because you gave up leverage. I just want y'all to take this thing serious because y'all ain't the only 21 year olds playing in this goddamn game.
Well, yeah, that's the point. You can't just say, 'Well, he's 21. He's young coming in.' Or...
Let's not take him out of the equation. Even though he is the biggest name here, right? But they, right, the they of them all, the 20-some year olds. Y'all ain't the only ones, right? Every team's got them. Every team has a draft. There is a responsibility. I am the first guy to say Abdul Carter is going to be okay. Right. But I need Abdul Carter to say, 'I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna commit to being as great as I can be.' I don't need Abdul Carter to continue to jump on social media, y'all slandering my name. No, you open that door for them to do that. When your team is out there and you're sitting on the bench with a cape on and you're not even standing up watching them because you're suspended for the first quarter of the game. You're not even engaged. You're suspended and it looks like this is how it looks to me. It looks like you're good until they tell you to come in. You're not even in the game, right? If you're looking at this game, then maybe you can see something that when your time comes that you can immediately impact it. That's what setting a standard is, bro. They hired you for that, right?
That's an operative word right there. You got hired for that, ain't you? Scholarship. It's just like you're getting paid.
Let me just tell y'all something for whatever you think. And we gonna put Brian Burns in a glass case and hope that it doesn't fog up and he loses his enthusiasm for whatever y'all said about Kayvon Thibodeaux, right? Guess what? The run defense hasn't been as good since he's been out. And every time Kayvon Thibodeaux makes a mistake, he corrects it. Kayvon Thibodeaux can take criticism without walking around pouting, right? Even a guy like Nacho. He's been called out many times. Walks in the door, you can tell he's like, I'm getting myself together. This is important to me. Y'all need a man mindset that this game is important. Now, I get the part where these kids don't know what they don't know, right? Good with that. But there are things that they should know and there are things that they can control. And when you walk in and you put the controller down or whatever it is you guys do, you're supposed to be part of a solution, not a continuation of a problem. Veteran and young player alike, your quarterback, his running mate, Cam's got a boo, they want to be part of a solution, not part of the same ooh, right? Y'all need to follow that. And they don't know what they don't know right now. Because if he did, he wouldn't have got knocked five yards out of bounds. But god damn it, he's trying, right? He's trying. I don't want to hear. And this is public facing talk from the general manager when he says, 'Well, yeah, he's a 21 year old.' Yeah, everybody's got 21 year olds. New England's got 21 year olds, too. I don't know how they deal with their guys when these things happen or if these things even happen. Right? When you walk through the door, you were hired to be a difference maker. And before you get out of your car, you ask yourself, every one of you, if you were a free agent hire, if you were a draft choice, or you are a guy who just got a big paycheck, what can I do to make a difference? When you walk in that building, your sole focus should be making a difference and being part of a solution. I felt so great about this team in training camp. I'm like, man, this thing looks like it can be something, right? But then the bad habits start to seep in and then we start to hear about all the other things that are going on. And this is what we get. And then you have your general manager who has to now, I don't want to say cover because I think there's some nuance to what he says when he says we're dealing with the 21 year old. So there's some nuance to that. But the fact that you've allowed your general manager to have to do this explaining for you just tells you there's some growth that has happened.
Carl, you can't continue to coddle. I don't pretend to be Inspector Clouseau here, but if you just use logic, Abdul Carter wasn't late for the first time two weeks ago when he got suspended for a series and he wasn't late for just a second time when he didn't play the entire quarter. My guess is just thinking about things logically, this has been a pattern of behavior that has been let go because he was the third overall pick and he's Abdul, and that falls on the head coach. So the interim head coach now is trying to draw a line in the sand somewhere and like dude we're not going to tolerate this.
Well, you know, here's my next question. Why is it okay for the rest of your teammates? I mean, y'all all making money. It's all good. Is this an environment, right? Because rookie or not, number three pick or not, there's strength in numbers. And if all of y'all trying to do it right and this one guy ain't, then that's got to be a conversation with the one guy who's not.
Or unless y'all all just said, 'I'm my thing and don't worry, that's his business.' And that's...
But maybe we don't know. Maybe there were conversations that have been had and it's fallen on deaf ears and that's where the head coach needed to have stepped in and flexed.
Like where the leadership council goes and look dude I've talked to him a couple times it's still going on it's still going on you need to do something you're not his buddy you're the head coach right because what happened...
Yeah I mean and here's the other thing...
I mean Dexter even said it's time to grow up. So clearly maybe that frustration has bubbled to a head where they have tried to have those conversations, right? Maybe a bunch of them have. And look, sometimes you have a team that has some really good players like an Andrew Thomas who's a Pro Bowl caliber player, Burns who we watched him practice every day in camp. The intensity in which he practices, like everything about him, he's a pro's pro. Carrick's had a very good career. But maybe sometimes, you know, they're not necessarily like the voice, right? Like you think like what did Dan Quinn do last year? He brought in Bobby Wagner. Bobby Wagner is well past his prime. He's still a good player, but he was the guy that was going to message throughout that locker room what the expectation level, what the standard was going to be for that football team. It's not a coincidence that Harold Landry is a key player on Vrabel's team. He was drafted by Vrabel in Tennessee, like that messaging thing. And I just kind of wonder like in this situation if although these guys are very good players in their own right if there's not that powerful leader in the room you know what I'm saying that that just...
Well that's a function of always having to import leadership, right. Now Dexter's drafted by this team and I'm assuming Dexter does what he can in terms of leadership, right? But the constant turnover. And then you bring a guy in that you want to be part of change and you bring defensive backs in and they show promise and then they take a step back. Where are your foundational guys and where is the infrastructure or the structure that you can give these guys to say this is where we need to be. This is where we need to return to. This is why you're here.
But think about this. Your foundation, your longest tenure draft pick guys, whether it's Darius Slayton or Dexter Lawrence, they're the guys that are left. How many regimes have they been through? Like, do they really have a foundation? In the sense that they've had so much turnover, right? Dexter Lawrence started with Pat Shurmur was the head coach and then he had Joe Judge and then he had Brian Daboll. Same thing with Darius Slayton. So maybe there isn't really a foundation to lean back on because it's like all right well what exactly am I asking for from my teammates when I'm not sure? And then the 2022 team, most of the guys, the cornerstone guys, the Leonard Williams, all those guys that were here are not here anymore. So, it's what is the standard? Maybe nobody's really sure what it is because it's been jumbled for a bit.
That is correct. And that is, I know for a fact that Darius Slayton has a problem with guys who don't commit to the process. I know that Dexter Lawrence does what Dexter does his best, right? When he's disruptive, he leads by example. But the question is, where's the standard? What should the foundation look like? Right now, the Patriots got away from that. Right? They tried the newfangled way and they figured, you know what? We need to get these guys back centered. We need to get the focus back on where it should be. All the different philosophies. There's one philosophy that wins. That's smart football. That's tough football. That's mentally tough football. And we need to get all of our guys on the same page, including our quarterback. If we got one that we believe in, let's make sure that we put enough people around him that share the same mentality. They have a coach who's been through it, who's unapologetic for the way he coaches and who he is. Don't know if he's ever had a press conference where he's had to be put in a position to defend something.
Well, I think he had the thing with Diggs this summer during training camp. Remember when Diggs was on the boat while he was supposedly rehabbing or whatever.
I think he had to deal with that, but he shut that thing right down.
And how's Diggs been? A model citizen.
No issues for the Patriots. But I don't like when you have to put your coaches and your management in a position where they have to defend you and what they can come back with is he's just a 21 year old. That is true. What are you doing to get him to understand that you're hired to do something? You're hired to be a part of change. Every team has these player development departments. They have psychologists, two or three guys. And again, I don't envy them because they got to deal with a lot of this stuff, right? But I think coming through the door, they have to understand what the expectation is and there has to be an element of accountability on a weekly basis to make sure, right? Don't think once they assimilate into the locker room, you know, they're going to be fine. You interview these guys pre-draft and this is the same thing that holds true when I say whenever they do at the coaching position, if that coach can't articulate a plan for your players and your best players, then that's not the guy for you. Right? If you're interviewing players pre-draft and you fall in love with the athlete, better have an idea of what his personality is like. And you might want to let him know that you know what his personality is like. And that if you're selected, here's what our standards going to be. Here's what you're going to have to be accountable for from day one. You're going to have to be on time. You're going to have to be awake. You're going to have to be engaged and you're going to have to be the best player every practice, no matter who you are. If these issues have been there and you still decide to take them, then you better lay the groundwork early on and there better be an element of accountability that you have to articulate to your player development department and your team psychologist to make sure that you can speak a language that this 21-year-old can understand that will get him locked in to where you are. There is a generation gap, right? But you know what never changes? The principles of winning, right? The principles of winning never change from generation to generation to generation. It takes commitment. It takes discipline. It takes toughness to win in this game. I've never seen a weak team win a Super Bowl.
Right. I've never seen an undisciplined team win a Super Bowl. Those things are required. It has stood the test of time. Whatever everything else that goes on, you're going to have to have those elements.
In every sport. In every sport.
Yeah. But this is a call to action, man. Like what is the standard? Who's going to establish it? Or if there's a standard that's already been set, don't run away from it because you ain't going to be better than that. You're not going to be better than the four Super Bowl teams that laid the standard for how Giants football is played or the guys who coach those teams. That's why New England is where they are right now. Patriot football is back because they're using a standard that was forged during the two Super Bowls that I won. And listen, I would even throw in the teams that didn't win a Super Bowl, but you know, the 2000 team that lost to the got Super Bowl.
I'll talk about the championship teams of 61, 62, and 63 going to three straight NFL championships. They didn't win any of them. They should have won the one in Chicago against the Bears. I think that was in '63. They didn't. The one in 58 that lost to the Colts in the greatest game ever played, but they had won in 56. Like those were standards.
Right? Your team from when you came in 84 through 90, like you didn't win the Super Bowl every year. You won two of them. But there was a standard.
That everybody knew was expected. Now, did they have to eventually change some of the parts? Yeah, they changed some of the parts along the way.
But the new parts that came in, we didn't bend the standard for the new parts.
We made Jumbo Elliott have to live up to the standard of the 86 offensive line and so on and so forth.
If you're a new part, then you become part of setting a new standard, right? You fit into that and then you're an overachiever. You've outperformed where the standard is. Now we raised the bar because of you.
Right. Sean O'Hara was on the 07 team. Unfortunately, he got hurt and he had to retire, but he was not on the 11 team, but there was a standard.
