Darren Rizzi talks Giants win, Derek Carr injury, Commanders game

One play that proved to be decisive was the athletic field goal block by defensive tackle Bryan Bresee. Bresee leaped over the line and got his hands on the final 35-yard attempt that would have tied the score and sent the game to overtime. Rizzi said Bresee had been resting on the sideline ahead of the play.

“We had the option, obviously, if we wanted to at that point to ice the kicker,” he said. “I knew that he (Bresee) was fresh coming off the bench. Had he been out there for a few plays, that could have been an option to give him another little breather. But we discussed all during that drive what our field-goal block call was going to be myself, Phil Galliano, Marwan Maalouf. And so, we were kind of talking on the headset. And then I saw Bryan standing there, and I kind of knew he was fresh and ready to go. And as I said yesterday, just an unbelievable individual effort for him to go and make that game-winning play.”

There had been speculation following the play that what the Saints did to free Bresee up to get over the top of the line may have been against the rules, but Rizzi clarified the strategy informing it.

“Let’s go through the rule part, because I’ve actually gotten a ton of questions about this in the last 24 hours,” he said. “You are allowed to push down on the opponent’s back and push them, that’s not holding. You could push them down to the ground. You can’t grab and pull the player down, but you could push down on the player. That’s what Payton Turner and that’s what Nathan Shepherd did and they should be commended because they did a phenomenal job. Second part of it is when the lineman jumps over the line of scrimmage and when a lineman jumps over the line of scrimmage, they cannot get a running start. They have to be on the line of scrimmage. For anybody that’s going to jump over the line, they have to be a player that’s on the line of scrimmage and there’s two things they cannot do. No. 1 is they can’t leverage off of your own guy or the opponent, meaning they can’t put their hands on them and gain a height advantage. And then No. 2, when they do jump, they cannot land on the opponent. And that’s where Bryan did a phenomenal job of clearing his feet. He kind of landed a little bit awkwardly, but still had enough juice to kind of go up and get his hand up. And, you know, the rest is history.”