QB Eli Manning
September 2, 2011
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Q: How about getting passed the preseason and getting ready for the regular season?
A: Obviously preseason is very important. You have to see what guys are going to make the team. You're always going to have new guys in certain spots and you have to see how they grow, how they respond. What's going to be our identity this year? And that can change. You have new guys playing different things. You can't expect to be running the same exact plays. You have to see what guys do well, what are their best qualities, what things do they do better than other people and put them in the right position. That's what we've been figuring out and now we're looking forward to, as you said, play for real and get ready for Washington.
Q: How anxious are you to get back in a regular season routine?
A: I think you're always ready for the regular season. Preseason and training camp, even with the new rules, is always long. It's always you're ready to get into that routine where you'll be playing the whole game and you're going to be game planning and having specific things that you want to run for this team. Sometimes your rules change and [you] try to get the guys in the best position to make plays and run our offense. Looking forward to that and getting excited about coming in next week and have the coaches and everybody get that game plan and look at it and say, this is going to be a good play, I like this, and getting ready.
Q:Is there any unfinished business and improvement you wanted to do?
A: No. Usually the fourth preseason game we don't play a whole lot anyway. In the past, we've played one series. Even when you go into the first game, after each game there is going to be room for improvement. It's not like, hey we're in our first game, everything is exactly perfect and we're never going to make a mistake. There are going to be mistakes, there's going to be things happen and it's just about continuing to learn. We have some new guys at some key positions. The only truly way to get better and for these guys to learn is getting in there, getting live reps, getting game reps and you get better as the season goes. Hopefully guys are sharp on most of the things, but there is still going to be some learning curve to it. You try to get those in practice. You give them looks. You get them as prepared as possible for everything that might show up. There's always going to be something new, something you didn't prepare for, a new look that a team has and hopefully if guys stick to the rules, we should be prepared for.
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Q: Which decisions are you most curious about to see how it works out?
A: I really just leave that to the management and the coaches. Get the calls tomorrow and see which guys are on the team and which guys are either moved to practice squad or we had to let go.
Q: There are some tight battles.
A: There always are. There always are. There's not a whole lot I can do worrying about it. I'm just going to let it run its course and whoever management decides on, that's the right guy.
Q: Have you had time to watch film on Washington?
A: Yeah, last week I wasn't doing much preparing for New England, obviously. So I watched the preseason games and going back, watched a little today. I have a long weekend to get ready and watched some of our games last year, other films. I try to get prepared. I've done a little bit, but still got a lot more to do.
Q: You'll be watching film this weekend?
A: Sure, sure. Yeah. I've got my computer and everything downloaded. I'll spend a little bit this weekend. I don't like to do too much before I get the game plan and get ready so I can watch it knowing what to look for, what our plays are or what our protections are. You can go through it again once you get that, make sure you're set on everything.
Q: Excited the preseason's over and for the regular season?
A: The only time's I've ever missed games in my career, I've been injured in preseason games. My focus is just getting through that healthy, getting the offense through healthy and fixing the mistakes, getting those things cleaned. You always would love to go out there and hit every throw, but that's what preseason's for - get used to getting hit a little bit, moving in the pocket, kind of get all of those things out of your system. Now you're game planning and we do a great job, our coaches, of putting is in great position to score points, mix things up against our tendencies, see what the defense is doing. You get excited about what's in the game plan and how we're going to use that to our advantage and score some points.
