TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (1-1) VS. NEW YORK GIANTS (0-3)
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1:00 P.M. ET (12:00 P.M. CT)
RAYMOND JAMES STADIUM (64,428)
BUC BIT OF THE DAY
Since the start of last season, TE Cameron Brate’s nine touchdown receptions are the most among NFL tight ends.
DID YOU KNOW
CB Brent Grimes…While with the Atlanta Falcons, recorded seven tackles and an interception against N.Y. Giants (11/22/09).
QUOTABLES
…Head Coach Dirk Koetter
(On if the Giants 0-3 record is misleading)
“It’s early in the year. I think everybody has a tendency – with us, with the Giants – I mean we’ve got these power rankings where teams drop 20 spots based on one game. Some teams have played three games. We’ve played two games. The players watch the tape. When you say fans go by 0-3, I don’t think most fans watch the tape. When you’re a player and you look at the Giants and you see Eli Manning, Sterling Shepherd, all their receivers – they’ve got [Odell] Beckham back this week – and then you look on the defensive side and you see [Jason] Pierre-Paul, you see [Olivier] Vernon. I think they’ve got three first-round picks in their secondary. As a player and as a coach you’re looking at good football players. If you really look at the end of that game last week, they made a great comeback. It was 24-24. I was kind of crazy how they lost that game at the end. They had the ball and then all of the sudden they had to punt and [it was] kind of a crazy play there. Players have a tendency to respect other teams more than maybe the fans do. We’ve got Robert Ayers, who used to be a Giant, on our team. We have DeSean Jackson, who played in the same division as the Giants – same with Chris Baker. I think the players talk and they know, ‘Hey, they’ve got some pretty good players over there.”
(On if it is tougher to get a team to regroup after a blowout loss or after a close loss)
“I think a loss is a loss. They all hurt the same. That knife is in there deep and you’re bleeding. Nothing gets it out until you get that taste out of your mouth. I think most of the best teams in the league, they are doing their best not to lose two games in a row. It’s one thing to lose, but to lose and play the way we did – if you play your best and you’re executing – there are a lot of other good players and good teams in this league. If you play your best and you come up short, that’s one thing. But to play like we played last week, I know it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth and I think I speak for pretty much every man in the room in there that says we’ve got a bad taste in our mouth right now.”
“I’m excited for this matchup because we lost last week and we get an opportunity to bounce back. Odell is a great player. He is a friend of mine, same class [and] he is a great player, so I’m looking forward to seeing him.” – WR MIKE EVANS
…DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MIKE SMITH
(On how much slack he is willing to give his players given the injuries that the defense was dealing with last Sunday)
“You’ve got to play the guys that are healthy. Unfortunately, we’ve got some guys that are down, but nobody is going to feel sorry for us – that’s for sure. We didn’t perform at the level that we needed to – that’s obvious in terms of explosive plays. When you give up close to 190 yards in four plays it really doesn’t matter what happens the rest of the game, you’re probably pulling and running uphill because you just can’t do that. We did it and we own it from the top down. We made the corrections and we move on.”