Bronx33
01-31-2008, 09:29 PM
Link
(http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/giants/2008/01/players-finish-talking.html)
It lasted about 20 minutes longer than scheduled, and in the end Michael Strahan had to basically be pulled away from the microphones, but the final media session of the season finally ended today.
And not a moment too soon.
The players are now free to focus on Sunday night’s game. All that’s left is a press conference with the two head coaches tomorrow. The nonsense, the guarantees, the silly questions … it’s all over.
Here are a few tidbits from today’s final hour-long chat:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/8683/shockeyaf0.jpg
• It looks like TE Jeremy Shockey will not be joining the Giants here, after all. His teammates have pleaded with him, and he even received personal invites from TEs coach Mike Pope and several others in the organization. But in the end, he apparently was worried about wandering through the crowds on crutches. He also didn’t want to be a distraction.
Asked how he’s handling not being at the Super Bowl with his team, Pope said Shockey “is devastated.”
Shockey, by the way, sent an inspirational message to his teammates, which is now hanging on their locker room wall. More on that later.
• Dumb question alert: Tom Coughlin was asked if he would consider kicking off if the Giants won the coin toss on Sunday night. “Ummm, yeah, we’re going to give the Patriots the ball one more time,” Coughlin said. “They don’t do well enough with their drives.”
• Quarterbacks coach Chris Palmer completely shot down the notion that a reduced or changed game plan is responsible for Eli Manning’s remarkable turnaround. “If you went back to our first game plan this year, you’d find a lot of similarities to our last game plan,” he said.
• Palmer, on the criticism Manning has endured this year and how unappreciated his overall talent had been. “There are some people in New York that would throw Racquel Welch out of bed because she couldn’t cook, you know what I mean?”
• DE Osi Umenyiora on what he thinks might be going through his mind as he runs out of the tunnel on Sunday night: “That I must get to Tom Brady. That’s pretty much what I’ll be thinking all game. That’s pretty much what I’ll be thinking about all day.
• I rode to the media availability in Ohm’s orange-yellow Mustang, by the way. If I recall, Cimini had a yellow car at last year’s Super Bowl. All I ever get is white or grey.
• One for the scrap book: Amani Toomer, Michael Strahan and Mike Pope took a picture together on the field at Media Day on Tuesday. They are the last holdovers from the 2000 Super Bowl team.
• More from Umenyiora, who was wearing the Giants’ new “Talk is cheap! Play the game!” shirts, adorned with the Super Bowl logo: “Enough talking has been done. The next thing I say will be with my pads.”
(http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/giants/2008/01/players-finish-talking.html)
It lasted about 20 minutes longer than scheduled, and in the end Michael Strahan had to basically be pulled away from the microphones, but the final media session of the season finally ended today.
And not a moment too soon.
The players are now free to focus on Sunday night’s game. All that’s left is a press conference with the two head coaches tomorrow. The nonsense, the guarantees, the silly questions … it’s all over.
Here are a few tidbits from today’s final hour-long chat:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/8683/shockeyaf0.jpg
• It looks like TE Jeremy Shockey will not be joining the Giants here, after all. His teammates have pleaded with him, and he even received personal invites from TEs coach Mike Pope and several others in the organization. But in the end, he apparently was worried about wandering through the crowds on crutches. He also didn’t want to be a distraction.
Asked how he’s handling not being at the Super Bowl with his team, Pope said Shockey “is devastated.”
Shockey, by the way, sent an inspirational message to his teammates, which is now hanging on their locker room wall. More on that later.
• Dumb question alert: Tom Coughlin was asked if he would consider kicking off if the Giants won the coin toss on Sunday night. “Ummm, yeah, we’re going to give the Patriots the ball one more time,” Coughlin said. “They don’t do well enough with their drives.”
• Quarterbacks coach Chris Palmer completely shot down the notion that a reduced or changed game plan is responsible for Eli Manning’s remarkable turnaround. “If you went back to our first game plan this year, you’d find a lot of similarities to our last game plan,” he said.
• Palmer, on the criticism Manning has endured this year and how unappreciated his overall talent had been. “There are some people in New York that would throw Racquel Welch out of bed because she couldn’t cook, you know what I mean?”
• DE Osi Umenyiora on what he thinks might be going through his mind as he runs out of the tunnel on Sunday night: “That I must get to Tom Brady. That’s pretty much what I’ll be thinking all game. That’s pretty much what I’ll be thinking about all day.
• I rode to the media availability in Ohm’s orange-yellow Mustang, by the way. If I recall, Cimini had a yellow car at last year’s Super Bowl. All I ever get is white or grey.
• One for the scrap book: Amani Toomer, Michael Strahan and Mike Pope took a picture together on the field at Media Day on Tuesday. They are the last holdovers from the 2000 Super Bowl team.
• More from Umenyiora, who was wearing the Giants’ new “Talk is cheap! Play the game!” shirts, adorned with the Super Bowl logo: “Enough talking has been done. The next thing I say will be with my pads.”