Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Bucs’ Schiano Defends Final Play of Loss to Giants

Bucs Coach Greg Schiano, left, was confronted by Tom Coughlin after Tampa Bay tried to reach Eli Manning as he was about to kneel on the last play Sunday.Credit...Julio Cortez/Associated Press

Through Pop Warner, high school and college, football players are coached to compete until the final whistle and take nothing for granted. Greg Schiano instilled that kind of fight into his teams in turning around a downtrodden program during his 11 years at Rutgers. He has said he intends to bring that never-say-die philosophy to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his first season as their coach.

Although it appeared to the Giants that Schiano crossed an unspoken line Sunday when he instructed his defensive unit to charge across the line of scrimmage and crash the Giants’ victory formation on the last play of their 41-34 win, Schiano was unapologetic after 24 hours of reflection.

“I don’t have any remorse or regret,” he said during his regularly scheduled news conference on Monday. “It’s clean, hard football.”

According to Schiano, that tactic produced a fumble four times in his last five years at Rutgers.

In this instance, Tampa Bay succeeded in startling quarterback Eli Manning and the rest of the Giants’ offense, but not to the extent that Manning lost control of the ball after he retreated a yard to his 29 before taking a knee with five seconds left to seal the victory. The scrum that ensued was as wild as the topsy-turvy game itself as the defending Super Bowl champion Giants made sure to keep Manning safe. Coach Tom Coughlin berated Schiano at midfield for what Manning — who threw for 510 yards, 3 yards short of Phil Simms’s franchise record — characterized as “a little bit of a cheap shot.”

Although Herman Edwards, the former Jets and Chiefs coach, proved the value of playing to the end when he produced the Miracle at the Meadowlands to shock the Giants as a defensive back for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1978, he seemed uncomfortable with Schiano’s tactics. Most defenders become bystanders at the sight of the victory formation.

“Coach Schiano, I think he’ll learn from this,” said Edwards, now an ESPN analyst. “Greg is trying to bring toughness to his football team; I get all of that. He got caught up in the moment and probably didn’t think about the repercussions of it.”

Edwards made a stunning play in the closing seconds of the Eagles-Giants game on Nov. 19, 1978. Giants quarterback Joe Pisarcik, instead of taking a knee, botched a handoff to fullback Larry Csonka. Edwards scooped up the loose ball and raced 26 yards to give Philadelphia an improbable 19-17 victory.

Image
Tackle David Diehl, who hurt his right knee in the first half, was among a group of Giants starters injured in the game.Credit...Barton Silverman/The New York Times

Edwards viewed this situation differently because it was so clear that the Giants had no intention of running a play as offensive linemen backpedaled to form a semicircle around Manning. When the Buccaneers’ defensive front came in low and hard, he said it put Manning at much greater risk than the Giants’ lead.

“This league is all about the players,” Edwards said. “We talk all the time about their safety and doing the right thing.”

Coughlin, in his 17th year as an N.F.L. head coach, had noted the safety issue after the game when he said: “You don’t do that in this league. You don’t just — you jeopardize the offensive line, you jeopardize the quarterback. Thank goodness we didn’t get anyone hurt.”

Giants running back Andre Brown, speaking on a conference call Monday, said members of the Buccaneers told some angry Giants players that they were simply following orders.

“That’s what everybody was saying, ‘Coach made us do it,’ ” Brown said. “You can’t go wrong following your coach.”

Brown said the Giants lined up in the victory formation in the final practice before each game. He said the Buccaneers gained penetration, but not enough to reach the ball, because “they shot so low.”

“It was just a crazy situation,” Brown said.

He added, “They had so much push at the bottom of the pile that you just kicked back.”

EXTRA POINTS

Tom Coughlin said Monday that tackle David Diehl hurt his right medial collateral ligament and was having tests to determine the severity of the problem and whether the damage extended beyond that. Diehl, a 10-year veteran, has missed only four games in his career. ... Coughlin said he was hopeful that cornerback Prince Amukamara, inactive the first two games with a high ankle sprain, might rejoin the lineup and “perhaps play with a minimal amount of pain.” ... Ahmad Bradshaw (neck) and Domenik Hixon (concussion) did not practice as the Giants prepared to visit the Carolina Panthers on Thursday.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Call It Injury Risk; Schiano Calls It Clean Football. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT