COACH TOM COUGHLIN
COUGHLIN
: Good morning. Hopefully, your families are safe and not too inconvenienced. We know that a lot of our great fans have had devastating results from this incredible storm. We start it off by just saying, we wish for everyone's safety and hope that the families are healthy and safe.
Pittsburgh Steelers. The tradition, we had talked about tradition in the National Football League. You don't get any more traditional than the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh
Steelers. The Steelers are 4-3, they've lost three games on the road and they're a very, very good football team. They are 11th in the league on offense, they are second on defense. They're traditionally a tremendous, powerful football team, very physical football team. They have an outstanding return game, they've had a couple of punt returns called back that were touchdowns. They have this young kid from Florida (running back Chris) Rainey. They have an outstanding kick returner. So, they do have a large offensive line. They have a group of running backs who seem to replace one another when injures do take their toll, with (Jonathan) Dwyer being the most recent runner. The receiving corps is outstanding. They have tremendous speed on the outside. In (Heath) Miller, they have a go-to, dependable tight end that has played very well. He provides Ben (Roethlisberger) with a reliable source that he goes to quite often. Roethlisberger has the ability to extend plays, which he's done throughout his career. Much has been said about the way in which they've directed and changed their offense over there. He has been well protected, he has not been hit nearly as much, nor is he forcing anything. He's distributing the ball very well to any number of receivers. Defensively, they're powerful, they're strong, and they're an attack-mode team, just like they always have been. Multiple looks, the creation because of versatility of opportunities in terms of coverages, pressures, fire zones, all-out pressures on third down and in the green zone. (Shaun) Suisham is kicking the ball very well. They have a young, rookie punter (Drew Butler) who has had one blocked, but has held up very well. So, this is an outstanding football team. They defeated Washington last weekend, they defeated Philadelphia, and those are teams that we know very, very well. So, we've been studying them as best as we can over the last couple of days, and look forward to presenting the Pittsburgh Steelers to our football team here in just a couple of minutes.
QB ELI MANNING
Q: How were the past two days?
A: It was interesting. Obviously a lot of wind and some water coming through, but we made it through safely, the most important thing. Now the focus is obviously getting ready to play a football game. So it's good to get everybody back in here and get the team together and understand we've got to get ready to play a game.
Q: Is it a challenge to put the reality of what happened aside?
A: I think we've had a couple of days to be with our families and kind of deal with the situation and it's not easy. Obviously, there's still a lot of issues and no power and the home life is different and has its challenges but I think once you get into the facility and get here and start working out and get around the teammates, it will be a good little break to kind of get away from that and once you get here everything feels pretty normal.
Q: What are you thinking when you see the water in your lobby?
A: I saw water coming over the Hudson river into the streets and you see cars completely covered with water and so obviously it can be scary and the wind was blowing and the windows were shaking and you just hope everything holds up and the building holds up and the windows don't crack, but everything didn't and you make it through that Monday night and you wake up Tuesday with the water all gone. It's back where it should be and you just kind of start figuring out what you're going to do the next couple of days.
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WR VICTOR CRUZ
CRUZ: Everybody's good. Thank God that we just lost our power overnight. We got it back in the morning, but we don't have any cable right now.
Q: Altogether, not terrible?
A: Yeah, not too bad. It just feels like 1990 all over again. That's about it.Q: As a Jersey guy, is it difficult to see some of the footage? Like the shore and whatnot? Is it shocking?
A: Yeah. It's definitely shocking. I mean, you've seen it with a couple of hurricanes in the past, when I was younger. I used to see all of that stuff. It never directly affected me. The past couple of years, a couple of hurricanes when you see things, when you see a couple having to evacuate their home and stuff. It definitely hits close to home a little bit.
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