Justin Tuck sat down with the Giants media and discussed various topics including the progress of the defense, Osi’s revenge, last year’s disappointing finish, and where exactly the Giants heads are at this year.
"Q: You had pretty consistent pressure. What was cooking for you?A: I don’t know. I just felt good out there. I think the first game my legs were a little heavy so I didn’t even have explosion. This week we came in, I really focused on getting my conditioning up while we were in Albany and making sure I was ready to play Saturday night. From there, I was going out there and executing assignments. The crowd got behind us. We made a couple big plays, we got the crowd behind us, and we definitely feed off that.Q: The third preseason game the starters usually go the longest. How much do you expect to play? How much do you need to play?A: I expect to play at least the whole first half, maybe a little bit into the third quarter. Obviously the coaches are going to work that out. Some guys have little tweaks here and things like that so it’s going to be different. The third game is important because it’s kind of like the dress rehearsal for the opening game because both teams are really going to do their scouting and get their game plan together. So it’ll be interesting to see how we gel and so far the first two week we’ve gotten better each week. So hopefully we can do that this week and go out and put a great showing together down in Baltimore.Q: Seeing Osi (Umenyiora) make the stop in the backfield and then force another stop in the backfield, particularly with all the talk about his play against the run. A: Well I mean you all know Osi. He’s very competitive. When you all start talking about he can’t do something, he loves to prove the fact that he can. So it was refreshing for him. I know he was happy to get out there and really make those big plays. For me, I’ll try to be the first one to congratulate him because again, that’s something we need to do. We need to get tackles for losses. We need to get big plays. Like I said, it gets the crowd into it, and we feed off each other and we play better when it’s noisy in there.Q: Can that stick? When he tries to prove something wrong, is that something that can last a full season?A: I hope so. You’d have to ask him how he feels about it, but I think it can. I think all of us like to play with some kind of chip on our shoulder or some kind of like ‘he said I can’t do this so I’m going to prove him wrong.’ We’re all kind of like that. So I’m hoping that he’s just going to return back to the form of Osi. We know him to be a Pro Bowl player, and I know he still has that talent so hopefully he’s going to return back to it this year.Q: Speaking of chips on shoulders, any extra motivation with who was lined up across from you (Flozell Adams) the other night? Any extra chatter?A: Not at all. We didn’t say two words. I don’t know. After the first couple plays, you tend to forget about it. What I do is just like business as usual, honestly.Q: You thought you were done with all that?A: I hope we get to play them again.Q: There’s been a lot of talk about moving from four preseason games to two preseason games. Do you think at this point if the first regular season game was coming up this Sunday, would you and the team be ready?A: Absolutely. I think we would have done things earlier and different, but yeah. Obviously it’s still a little different. I guess I’m biased because I’ve been through some seasons now. I know what it takes for me to get ready. I think that the rookies would have a harder time getting ready for the season in that situation. I know the next question off of that is ‘Do you want to add two more regular season games after taking those two away?’ Absolutely not. But yeah, I think I could definitely be ready to play a regular season game next week.Q: When you look ahead to the regular season, was last year a fluke?A: I hope so. But like I said, time will tell. If we go out there this year and go 8-8, then obviously last year wasn’t a fluke. Last year is something that hopefully we learned from. It was something that we can build off of because I’ve said it, we’ve got…We thought we was just going to walk in here again and make the playoffs and it didn’t happen. So hopefully that was an eye-opening experience. We know what it takes to get back to the promised land, but now we’ve just got to go do it.Q: Do you feel as good about up front as you have? Last year there was a lot of talk about what you could do up front and for a variety of reasons it didn’t happen. Right now, do you feel really good about up front?A: I feel good about it, but I also know that we’ve got a long way to go. There are still some holes there as far as communication, as far as everybody being on the same page. Once we figure that out and once we get that down, I think we’ve got a great shot at making a lot of noise. But if we don’t, we have a great shot of getting embarrassed. So we’ve all got to be like I said, we’ve got to be four guys out there playing as one. The sooner we can do that, obviously I’ll feel a whole lot more comfortable."
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