Giants running back Saquon Barkley was visibly upset during his postgame media session on Sunday, and when asked what he meant when he said he thought the defense was “annoyed” by the team’s recent offensive malaise, he offered this:
“When you go out there and they're playing great, you know, they're playing great, we've got to go out there and make plays for them. When I mean annoyed, I mean understanding that football is about all three phases playing at a high level all together, clicking at the same time. And that's not what happened right now on this team. We've got to do a better job of playing all three phases, and we're not doing it on our side.”
Two of the Giants’ defensive leaders, Logan Ryan and James Bradberry, don’t agree that their unit is “annoyed” though.
“I don't feel annoyed at all; we knew what the challenge was, and how their defense is playing during their win streak,” Ryan said. “They're almost playing like top defense in the league right now, and we kind of took that challenge to try to match them and beat them. We have to play Miami’s offense; we see what their defense is doing, but we can only control what we can control.”
In fact, Ryan, for one, appreciated Saquon more for being frustrated about his own unit’s lack of production.
“You got young guys with money in their pockets, and you can say Saquon has the world at his feet, but he still cares about this game. He’s a lot more than what people see; he works very hard, cares about winning very deeply, and takes responsibility and accountability,” Ryan said. “When you don't win games, you want to have people that take ownership. You want to have people that say, guys, it's on me. It's not on one guy, we know it's a team sport, but I appreciate that about Saquon, and I appreciate that we had talks when I got back about leading our side and doing what we got to do to find wins and fighting and scratching and clawing. I respect that about him.”
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Ryan and Bradberry both also took that accountability, denying miscommunication on either of Miami’s touchdowns but instead pinning those on Tua Tagovailoa’s ability to keep plays going and exploit small opportunities.
To that point, Sunday was the first game this season the Giants defense didn’t record a takeaway. Ryan’s quote that “Miami’s defense beat us in turnovers today” isn’t as impactful as it could be given the only turnover of the game, a Mike Glennon interception thrown in the first quarter, realistically did nothing but take two minutes off the clock in the end, but that is how Big Blue has made their bones.
“Getting the ball has been a big key to us winning games. Today we didn't get one. If we don't get the ball, we're not going to win the games,” Ryan said.
“Creating turnovers is always at the top of my mind, you know, creating turnovers, but the way they ran the offense, it was definitely tough to create turnovers,” Bradberry added. “I'm not making an excuse. We should have definitely created some turnovers; it was definitely tough, but that’s our thing as a defense.”
Unfortunately, no matter what the defense did, their offense didn’t get in the end zone this week, and their only touchdowns since the bye came from an offensive lineman and a little-used tight end. It’s cliché that you can’t win with field goals – although the two the Giants got last week were the difference – but Ryan knows what the Giants are dealing with.
“We understand our starting quarterback was out today, and you’ve got to find ways on special teams and defense,” Ryan said. “The offense had opportunities today, but we've seen defenses carry teams. You've got to generate points on defense. Field position is really important; flipping the field and giving our offense the ball in scoring position was a big part of getting those field goals, and then obviously executing in the red area – we couldn’t give up sevens today. If it was going to be a field goal fest, we've got to keep it a field goal fest, because we didn’t have the margin of error to give up sevens today.”
As Bradberry noted, it’s tough to be perfect – so even if the offense isn’t scoring, the defense can’t try to do too much.
“It's definitely difficult to go out there and play perfect. So as an individual, I never want to put that pressure on myself to where I have to go out there and play perfect. I just want to go out there and play,” he said.
Still, to a man, one thing rings true: it’s on everyone to do their jobs.
“It’s pressure going out there in general, so I try not to get too caught up in what the other side of the ball is doing,” Bradberry said. “I know my job is to go out there and defend every blade of grass out there and defend them from scoring touchdowns. That's my approach every time I go out on the field, you know, stop them from scoring.”
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