Following an embarrassing 30-7 drubbing at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this past Sunday, several New York Giants players sounded off in the locker room after the game.
“We played soft, and they beat the (expletive) out of us today,” defensive captain Dexter Lawrence said.
“Soft as (expletive),” wide receiver Malik Nabers added.
Offensive tackle Jermaine Eluemunor, who left the game due to injury, questioned the effort he saw some several of his teammates.
“I personally don’t think everybody is giving 100 percent,” Eluemunor said, via ESPN.
The comments were addressed by head coach Brian Daboll earlier this week, which included a meeting between Daboll, general manager Joe Schoen, and Nabers.
Daboll said the air had been cleared.
On Tuesday, following the team’s walkthrough practice, several players did an about-face, blaming the media for taking their comments out of context.
“Well, about the soft thing, I think you guys need to be held accountable for how you put it out there. I didn’t say, ‘We are soft,’ as a team. I think I said we ‘played’ that way,” Lawrence told reporters. “So, for you all to put the message out that way is not okay, as well, and should be held accountable for that.”
Nabers also expressed regret over some of the verbiage he used after the frustrating loss.
“After watching the film, I wish I would have used different words to describe the game afterwards. I don’t think it was really soft,” he said.
Daboll has often been accused of being too lenient with his players and allowing them to get away with too much. With his job now on the line, it’s clear he wanted to get a handle on this before it was out of his control. The players responded by walking back their comments and attempting to project blame on the media.
The optics don’t improve by players failing to accept responsibility for their own comments but it does indicate that, at least for now, Daboll still has some level of control in the locker room.
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