Antrel Rolle On The Giants: 'Every Man Needs To Look At Himself In The Mirror'
NEW YORK (WFAN) - After being outscored 67-14 over the last two weeks, the defending Super Bowl champions no longer control their own playoff destiny.
New York fell to Baltimore, 33-14, this past Sunday, and now have lost five of seven after starting the season 6-2.
So what's wrong with the Giants, a team that always seems to come up big in the clutch?
LISTEN: Antrel Rolle chats with Evan Roberts and Chris Moore
"I don't even know what to say at this point, to be honest with you," safety Antrel Rolle told Evan Roberts and Chris Moore on Wednesday. "I just think that we're extremely flat. ... We're not playing with emotion, we're not playing with pride, we're not playing with a sense of urgency, we're not playing with intellect. Everything that you can possibly do wrong as a football team, I think we've pretty much done it over the past two weeks."
The two-time Pro Bowler doesn't see the intensity that Big Blue showcased last season when it went on a memorable run and defeated the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.
"Are we out there playing with passion? No, obviously not," Rolle said. "Are we playing motivated? Obviously not. Are we playing smart football? Obviously not. (Atlanta and Baltimore) are good, but are they better than us? Hell no! I'll tell you that right now. Hell no! I don't care what the score was."
Though the veteran didn't call any of his teammates out, he admitted that each player wearing blue needs to be on the same page and have their head in the right place as the season winds down.
"Every man needs to go and look at himself in the mirror," Rolle said. "... It kind of comes down to, 'Does this guy want to be here? Is this guy going to play? Is he going to lay it all on the line come Sunday?' That's the question right now that's being asked of us. Does this team still want it? Do we believe in ourselves? Are we satisfied having won the Super Bowl last year? I can't speak for everyone when I say it, but I know that I'm certainly not."
When reporters and fans looked at the schedule before the season, the Week 17 matchup between the Giants and Eagles stood out as one that could have significant playoff implications. Now with the game just days away, the Eagles are tied for the worst record in the NFC and the Giants' season is hanging by a thread.
But although the game might be anticlimactic, Rolle promises that he'll leave it all out on the field in the final regular-season game.
"I'm going to play this game harder than any game I've ever played in my career," Rolle said. "If this happens to be our last game, you don't want to go out the way we have the past couple of weeks. You want to go out with at least a piece of a cherry on top. ... I'm going to go out there and just give it my all, like I'm a kid again; just go out there and play ball. Just attack the game, don't let the game attack you."
Do you believe that the Giants struggled because they thought they could rekindle their magic at any time, or are they simply not as good as we thought they were? Sound off with your thoughts and comments below...
