After the New York Giants were routed by the Buccaneers 30-8 at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Giants DT Dexter Lawrence called out his team.
“We played soft, and they beat the (expletive) out of us today,” he said on Sunday. “We missed a lot of tackles, we didn’t contain Baker (Mayfield, the Buccaneers’ quarterback) well in the scrambles, we didn’t cover well. It’s soft to me. “I don’t think we lack effort; I think we’re just not doing well tackling and covering on defense.”
On Tuesday, as the team prepares to travel to Dallas to battle the Cowboys on Thanksgiving, Lawrence wanted to clarify his comments from Sunday.
“Well, about the soft thing, I think you guys need to be held accountable for how you put it out there,” he said. “I didn’t say, ‘We are soft,’ as a team. I think I said we ‘played’ that way. We lost 30-7. That’s not okay. We’re in the NFL. So, for you all to put the message out that way is not okay, as well, and should be held accountable for that. But I think, like I said, we came out today with good energy. We came out today embracing this moment that we have and that we get to go play on Thanksgiving. So, we’re excited about that.”
Following his film study, Lawrence thought the tackling was not good, but the effort was fine.
“Tackling, yes,” he said. “Everything else, like effort, looks fine. We’ve just got to finish plays. I think we’ve got to stop beating ourselves on critical downs. When we’re backed up, we’ve got to win those third and shorts and third downs. We’ve got to win those. Just those, ‘Got to have it,’ plays, we’ve got to get.”
Lawrence, one of the team’s captains, says he’s trying to keep things positive going into the game against the Cowboys.
“I think it starts with the leaders, honestly,” Lawrence said. “We’ve been handling things with a positive mindset in here. We went out today and walked through. It went well, good energy, talking a lot, loud, which we wanted to be on defense. It was flowy, I guess you can say. Not many mistakes for it being the second or so walkthrough.”
If the Giants don’t improve their efforts and performance, there could be some changes before the end of the season. New York’s performance was unacceptable on Sunday.
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