Postgame Quotes: New Orleans Saints 14, New York Giants 11 | 2024 NFL Week 14

“I want to start out by saying congratulations to the guys. As I just told them, ‘Sometimes you don’t get to pick the formula on how to win. Sometimes you think the game is going to play out a certain way and it plays out a little differently. We didn’t particularly have a very good fourth quarter there. But, we found a way to make a play at the end of the game. Obviously, (defensive tackle) Bryan Bresee with a huge block. Phenomenal job by him. But, listen, the things we did well, obviously, our defense pretty much controlled the entire game, until the last quarter when they started to move the ball a little bit. Obviously, had a couple of chunk plays. But, overall very happy with the defense in terms of the way we stopped the run. New York Giants quarterback Drew Lock ended up being their leading rusher. That’s something we’ve got to look at. That’s hit us a few times this year with the long quarterback scrambles. We’ve got to examine that a little bit. But, as far as their actual running game goes, two running backs combined for 53 yards. That was a huge part of why we thought we could win this game today. It’s a huge part of why we won the game. We’ve got to get some things cleaned up. I thought our offense and our special teams had one of the worst halves, maybe the worst half of the year, in the first half. We turned it around and made some plays there in the second half. Obviously, it’s kind of ironic that we ended up winning the game on a special teams play because we were having one of our worst days in recent memory. But, again, great job of finding a way to win. It’s never easy to win in this league. We came out on the road. We respond from last week. We get a ‘W’. We go home with a win. We’ll try to figure out some of these other things we’ve got to get figured out.”

On any update to Derek Carr’s Injury

“He’s got a left hand (injury) that they’re looking at. We’ll see what’s going on with that. I really don’t have any other information than that. They’re going to do all the scans and the X-rays and all that. So, we’ll play that by ear. He made a phenomenal effort, on his part, to try to keep our drive going and get it first down there. Just an unselfish player diving over the top and came down. I think he tried to put his hand down and brace himself. I think he just hurt his hand. We’ll see what they say. I also believe he might be the concussion protocol. I’ve got to confirm that. But, right now, it’s really talking more about his hand. He may be in the concussion protocol as well. We’ll see what happens there.”

On the exchange with Matthew Hayball after the punt return got called back

“That’s what you’re calling an impassioned exchange? I’m passionate about everything. Everybody has a job to do. Everybody has a one-eleventh to do. I’m a big accountability guy and what was a big part of our game plan today and he wasn’t executing the game plan. So, I’m going to say this. His last punt was outstanding and it really helped us. Actually, I think his last two punts, the second to last punt in particular, was really, really good. Pinned them back. Didn’t get any returns. That’s really what we were trying to do all day. Our first three punts weren’t good enough. So, that passionate exchange, I let him know that that’s exactly how I felt. So, it probably came across as a little bit more than that but me and Matt are fine.”

On Alvin Kamara’s response to the exchange

“Listen, I love AK (Alvin Kamara) because AK is a guy who’s very, very observant and sees everything. You guys know that I’ve followed AK for a while. He’s a little bit of a lay-in-the-weeds guy, but he sees everything. He’s very, very observant. He was just trying to be the peacemaker there. Then he came back around and said, ‘Rizzi, I didn’t know you could lose your shit on a punter like that.’ He was just trying to calm me down. But listen, he’s a team guy and that’s good to have around.”

On Bryan Breese’s field goal block

“Phenomenal. Phenomenal. That’s a play that we started practicing. We had it in a few times. We put it in this week on Friday. We repped it a couple of times on Friday. We were out there on the field and we were like, ‘Hey, you never know. The game could come down to this.’ And look what happens. It just goes to show you, though, that a guy his size, the athletic ability he just displayed. I’ve seen him do it all the time in practice. I knew he could do it. We were discussing on the headset, myself, (Assistant Special Teams Coach) Phil Galiano. We were deciding on what call was the best call. We were kind of going there. The last ball that he had hit had come down a little bit low, so I wanted to get some pressure there in the middle. But, really, just an unbelievable, phenomenal job by Bryan. Individual effort. Some other guys that were working on the play, too, to make sure he gets freed up. But, outstanding. Outstanding. Great to see him make a big play like that. Really a game-winning play.”

“Really, the last couple of weeks. We talked about that during the week. He’s a guy that’s just – I feel like his best football is still out there. You see these flashes of brilliance out of the player between the pass rush and the field-goal block. He’s made a couple of huge plays a couple of weeks in a row. You’re seeing a lot of the reasons we drafted the player. We drafted Bryan in the first round. So, these are some of the things. We talked about some of the things he can continue to get better at: first, second down. But, his pass rush, his field-goal rush, those things are outstanding.”

On the importance of this victory

“Huge. I know another one of the teams at the top of our division lost again today. So, it keeps us in the mix. Listen, we’re down here to the end of the year. It’s the middle of December already. When you’re playing games that still matter and still count and still have a chance to affect the final outcome, that’s a big deal. So here we are with four to go and as I just said to the guys, that’s why we practice with a purpose. We go through the week with a purpose because we’re still playing. We’re still in contention. Trying not to be a big-picture guy, but, it’s always nice to have that out there so you can focus on the now and not worry about that there’s still that opportunity for us.”

“I was able to see a lot of family and friends. Phenomenal. My three nieces were here. Cousins, friends, high school. My high school coach at Bergen Catholic was here. Bergen Catholic had a big contingency. So, it’s congratulations to them. Just two Fridays ago they won the state championship right here on this field against Don Bosco. So, another state championship for them. It’s great to see all those people. Friends I grew up with, some family. So, I got a little emotional there when I came out to the field and saw them out there. My immediate family. Just really, cool. As I said at the beginning of the week, once the game kind of started, you got to forget all that with this. I’m not going to sit here and try to BS you guys. To go up here in my home area and get a win on the visiting side, obviously, is something that I probably told you would never happen in my life since. Pretty wild, pretty crazy. Back to focusing on the Saints. Then I’ll get back on track for next week.”

On Kendre Miller and his return

“Yeah listen, I think Kendre again, is showing you why we drafted where we drafted him. He made some really dynamic runs I thought. Kendre has the unique ability to make an eight-yard run look really good. And making people miss, getting some tough yards. Again, just a small sample there. But again, the touchdown run he has where he just keeps his power. And when I talked about in the beginning, we could change the pace back, that’s really what I was talking about. A guy that can just have a little bit of a different style, and that’s a big deal. We don’t become one-dimensional with (running back) Alvin (Kamara), we got another guy that can get us a tough yard. So, he had a nice kick return today. Off the top of my head, I’m a 31-yard kick return. A really nice touchdown run. Some really good make-or-miss. So, Kendre has to just stay consistent. That’s been his thing. So we’ve got to do that again next week. We’ve got to have another good practice run. We’ve got to just stay healthy. And so those are the things. But you saw the flashes today on the athletic opponents. That’s a guy we really needed to draft.”

On the importance of getting on the field after injuries

“It’s very important to get out there and just show, you can always sit here and say, ‘well, well, this and well, that. Maybe this, maybe that’. But to actually show the proof. And that’s the thing about Kendre Miller. The times that he’s been on the field for us, like today, you see it. And anybody that knows football sees it. You see a very good running back. That’s what you see. And again, is he there yet? Has he reached the clinic? No. He’s got plenty of room for growth. But staying healthy, and staying consistent for him is the big thing. And actually, coming out and showing it rather than just saying, ‘Oh, he looks good in practice’. Or ‘Oh, he looked really good in college’. And I just saw today what he did.”

“Really, those two long drives are the game. I mean, when it comes down to it, we get pinned back there on a great punt by Jamie Gillan for the Giants. And then he did a great job punting the ball today. They had all the field position in their favor in the first half. We obviously faked the punt in midfield and missed it by half a yard. They had good field position there. And so, they did a really good job. And so, when we got pinned back and we went on a long touchdown drive, man, that was a big deal. We talked all week about we had not been good coming out of halftime in the third quarter. Our first couple of drives, I believe our first drive, we had a punt in that second drive. We went on the field again. Shoot up a lot of clock. Had another scoring drive. So really, although it may not have been, the whole picture may not have been super pretty today. Offensively, those two drives essentially were the ones that mattered the most. And so, kudos to them. We’ve got to do a better job of finishing games. We get the ball back there at the end. We don’t get a first down. We come up on third and short. We don’t get the first. We get a punt. And we gave it back to them. We get the ball back. I think we had two situations today where we got the ball back with a chance to kind of end the game, and we didn’t do that. So that’s where we’ve got to do better. But our defense clearly in the first half was much better than our offensive special teams. And held them to three points, and that’s why we were in good position. And put us in a really good position to win the game today.”

On Bryan Bresee’s success

“I wouldn’t say anything as just one particular thing. I think Bryan is focusing in on the things that he can get better at. I think BY, the last few weeks has opened his eyes to some technique stuff and some things that can help his game. But man, I mean Bryan’s young. He’s got a lot of football ahead if he stays healthy. And you see the flashes, and that’s the thing. I listen, I’ve read the narrative. The narrative is, ‘Oh, man, a flash play and it disappears for a while’. That’s what he can’t do. He’s got to just be more consistent. And so, the last two weeks, he’s got a heck of a body of work the last two weeks. So that’s the key for him and for us is to keep him where he’s been the last couple of weeks and play more consistent.”

On challenging the team with narratives

“Hell yeah. One of our goals for this game this week was to control the narrative. All the narratives are out there. We can’t stop doing that. We’ve got a good second-half offense. You know all the things. We were 0-4 on our last four road games. We were 0-2 on our last two outdoor road games. So those are facts and narratives. And so, my challenge to the guys this week is you control your performance. You control that. So, yeah, not only do we challenge them individually, we challenge them unit-wise, team-wise. So, I think that’s important. I think it’s important that those guys know they can control that.”

On challenging strategies

“Yeah, there’s different ways. I mean, honestly, I don’t challenge every single guy the same. I’m not going to challenge Alvin Kamara, DeMario Davis, Cameron Jordan the same way I’m going to challenge some of the younger guys, Kool-Aid McKinstry, and Trevor Penning, and Taliese Fuaga. There are differences there. Guys have been doing it a long time. So, I think the thing you get creative as a coach, you get to find different ways to challenge guys. It really depends on where they are in their career, in my opinion.”

On using Parcells’ playbook for motivation

“Yeah, I don’t want to get too many cats out of the bag. But yeah, a lot of that stuff we do. But listen, I challenge Kendre (Miller) all week, and I’m proud of him. The next challenge for him is going to be can we duplicate the success and duplicate the production.”