DENVER BRONCOS HEAD COACH JOSH MCDANIELS

On ending the losing streak

“Today really had nothing to do with the streak for us. We were pleased with the way that we came out and prepared this week. It’s not easy to prepare for a difficult opponent that we don’t know very well in just two or three days of preparation. Our team had a great attitude. You could tell they really were looking forward to playing tonight, and enjoyed the whole atmosphere and the fact that we had three days in between. We played complimentary football. We played pretty well in all three phases. It always feels better to win.”

On NFL Network airing profanity

“It’s the NFL Network. It doesn’t surprise me.”

On the Broncos being an emotional team

“We talked about that last week after the loss. It’s part of our makeup. It’s part of our team. It’s part of who I am. It’s part of who a lot of our players are, and we don’t want them to be somebody that they are not. We don’t want them to try and contain that if that’s how they feel. I think that when you get a channel in the right direction that it is always a positive. It sometimes can go in the wrong direction. I’m happy that I have those guys in the locker room with me every week. I love to go to work. I love to coach them, and we have a lot of fun doing what we do and work hard to try and do it.”

On the importance of S Brian Dawkins

“He’s been playing like he’s 25 all year. That’s the spirit that he has. His spirit, I’ve said it a number of times already, I don’t think I’ll ever be around another player that has the spirit that Brian Dawkins has. His leadership, his quality of it, and just his persona, his positive attitude, the things that he brings to our team every day. What a great example for every player, every coach, whether they are young or old.”

On if he seeks out players that play with emotion

“That doesn’t bother me, if they do that. You guys know we have a lot of them, and that’s okay. I don’t think that’s a prerequisite to play for me or playing here for the Broncos. I think that’s always good to have a good mix or good blend of those kinds of personalities on your team. Certainly not everybody can be like that, and we don’t want them to be like that, but we would definitely embrace people that play like that and show their emotion and personality. It makes practice fun. It makes the game fun. And when you win, that stuff is all positive.”

On if emotion helps after coming off of a loss

“I think when you have positive personalities, and I think that’s what we have, we don’t have guys that get down. The last four weeks in our building haven’t been a funeral. We have a great work ethic, great resolve. You want to put yourself in a position after Thanksgiving to be able to compete to make the playoffs, and that’s what we hopefully have done. We have to play well from now on out, and we know that’s the situation that every team is in, and we are embracing that situation.”

On false starting in the Red Zone in the second quarter

“You can’t false start in the Red Zone. It was frustrating because we practiced a lot down there and we do a lot of different things. When we do it right, we can be very good. We certainly weren’t very good, and I’ll take the blame for that. The things we were trying to accomplish on those last three plays wasn’t the right mix or formula at that time, and we didn’t respond very well to it. Like you had mentioned, the NFL Network thing, I don’t even know what that is. That’s their business. The fact that we tried to go over and have a little bit of eye-to-eye there was what that was.”

On if he is aware of the camera on him

“No, I don’t even know. I have no idea where the camera was. I was just trying to do what I thought was best at the time.”

On RB Knowshon Moreno’s confidence

“He and [Correll] Buckhalter both. I mean, when you’re running behind the line, when you’re running behind the fullback, [FB] Spencer Larson deserves credit, [TE] Daniel Graham, [TE] Tony Scheffler, the entire offensive line. I don’t know how many runs we had that went negative, but it couldn’t have been many, and for those guys to keep the line of scrimmage clean against a front like that, they deserve a ton of credit. Any back that’s running behind a line like that that can give them time to find a crease. They look like they’re having a lot of fun out there, to me, and that’s a good sign.”

On [WR] Brandon Marshall’s performance

“He said I was going to see ‘The Beast’ tonight. I guess that’s what it means, because those are catches that special people make. There’s no question about that. When you go up there and do it one-handed, and keep running, there aren’t many people in the league that can do that.”

On offensive strategy

“We thought that that might quiet them down a bit. This is a difficult team to prepare for, and when you give them an opportunity to go ahead and mix and match their personnel, and to use the different blitz packages in Nickel, or in regular defense, it can be problematic. On a short week, we felt like mixing some of that in there to try and keep the game quieted down might be a good formula for us. We felt good about what we were going to do from that. I don’t know that I knew we were going to run that many plays from Nickel, but as the game wore on it was something that we just felt good about. ”

On defensive strategy

“We were trying to do a combination of sending some pressure at [Eli Manning] a little bit, but we wanted to create some tight coverage with the safeties behind him. Some of it was with the single safety. We didn’t want to let him stand back there and get into a rhythm, stand in the pocket and feel comfortable and then pick-and-chose his receivers. I thought that our guys did a pretty good job of being competitive. They’ve got a good receiving core, their tight end. They used their backs too. We tried to keep [Manning] off-balance a little bit by covering tight, making [Manning] hold the ball a bit, and then mixing in the pressures before he could find somebody. Our guys did a nice job of executing the game plan. I don’t think he got into a rhythm as the game wore on, and that was our plan going into it.”

On limiting the Giants’ running game by maintaining possession

“We were trying. I know that we have been on the flip-side of that now for a few weeks, where we’ve had very small time-of-possession, and then we fall out of the running game as the game goes on. We knew that they had dominated time-of-possession a lot through the course of the season. If we allowed them to control and maintain possession, we knew it could be a problem. We wanted to run the ball on offense and we thought that our running game offensively could help stop their running game defensively. We tried to keep them off the field as much as possible.

QB KYLE ORTON

On the offense’s success against the Giants

“We executed pretty well all night and played with a lot of energy on offense, which was great. The defense got us some turnovers (and) got us some great field position, and we took advantage of it.”

On what led to the offensive success against the Giants

“We pretty much played turnover free. I threw the one interception I wish I had back, but I think we threw for probably 230, 240 (yards) and we ran for 135, so we stayed balanced. We were successful on first and second down. We weren’t all that great on third down, but it seemed like we did most of our work on first and second down, which we had talked about all week. We went out and executed the game plan pretty well.”

On WR Brandon Marshall’s performance

“I told him on the one (pass) on the sideline he was trying to make me look bad (by) catching it with one hand like that. He had a great game (and) had a couple really good catches. I thought we got a nice production out of the pass game.”

On settling for a field goal on the Broncos’ first drive of the second quarter

“It was frustrating to get down there for the second time and to have some mishaps. (We committed) pretty much dumb penalties. That’s kind of been our Achilles heel, penalties and red-zone offense. We’ve got some work to do, certainly, but we’re not going to take anything away from the win.”

On feeding off of Head Coach Josh McDaniels’ emotion

“It’s great to have a coach like that (who is) emotional. We’ve got a lot of emotional guys on our offense. I think guys appreciate it, and I think they thrive off of it.”

On the offensive line’s performance

“I think they played great. They stayed tight the whole game and didn’t allow penetration in the run game and allowed our running backs to get to the second level, which we had talked about all week. We wanted to make their secondary tackle us, and the running backs ran hard. In the pass game, we knew we had to handle the blitz. That was kind of the Giants’ (method of) operation. They did a great job of picking it up and giving me enough time, and the receivers got open in a timely fashion.”

On getting sacked on the Broncos’ first offensive play of the game

“It was maybe a little bit longer of a play and something that (was a) little new wrinkle that we had thrown in. We were trying to hit them on one down the field. It certainly didn’t turn out the way that we wanted it to. For the most part, the (offensive line) played great.”

On how he feels physically

“I probably feel about as good as everybody else does. It’s the second half of the season and past Thanksgiving now. Nobody really feels good. It’s just a grind every week to try to get as healthy as you can and do it again.”

ILB ANDRA DAVIS

On the win

“It was a huge win for us to get to 7-4. We beat a good team tonight and got a little momentum.”

On team identity

“We know who we are. We just know that we have to go out there and play complementary ball in all three phases. Everyone has to pitch in and do their job. We just have to go out there and play together”

On the getting the win

“We played together and everyone contributed. We did not try to go out there and do more than we were supposed to do. We played within the scheme and played for one another, and we were able to get the W.”

On having fun

“We were having fun. We were not having fun in the last four weeks and we came out and had fun tonight. When we are having fun, guys feed off of each other, and you want to join in that fun and go out there and make a play. But we had fun within the scheme and that was the number one thing.”

CB ANDRE’ GOODMAN

On the team win

“That looked like the Broncos from the first six weeks of the season. We have shown two different teams, but this felt different, and the team that showed up and started fast today was a good one.”

On getting the win

“There was so much talking over the last four weeks, and I think that once we got off to a 6-0 start, we were starting to feel like such a great team. After the last four losses, we were trying to talk our way back into the win column, and talking never does anything in terms of getting the W on the field. And again it feels good to be back in the win column.”

On the remaining schedule

“Five weeks is too far to count. We have one game next week and that to me is what matters. We said we wanted to win most games after Thanksgiving because that is when real football starts and the contenders play their best football. We got off to a good start today.”

TE TONY SCHEFFLER

On the short week

“We did not have a whole lot of time to think about anything because of the short week. We were coming off of a bad loss versus San Diego and we just kind of wiped that away. We had a couple of days of cramming information into our heads, and we just went out there and played football.”

On being part of the game plan

“It is fun to be a part of it. Just the way things have rolled this year, I have not been able to be a part of it every week, but it is fun to be out there and make some plays. I just want to help the team win, and we had a big win today. Now we can move on and take a couple of days to relax and enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend with our families, and then we can get back to work with Kansas City.”

On the play action passing attack

“We have to give credit to the o-line and the running game to open up the play action. We ran the ball really well tonight, Knowshon [Moreno] had his coming out party tonight, and Buck [RB Correll Buckhalter] ran it well too. When you’re running the ball so well, it opens up so many things.”

WR BRANDON STOKLEY

On snapping the four game losing streak

“It was big obviously. When you lose four in a row, we just had to keep grinding away. No matter what the situation is, it starts on the top with [Broncos Head Coach] Josh [McDaniels], and we’ve got a good group of leaders on this team so we keep plugging away, week by week, no matter what the situation is.”

On getting QB Kyle Orton back in the starting line up

“He showed a lot of heart in the last few weeks, playing through a tough injury. We know he’s been hurting so hopefully this weekend will give him some time to heal, and a week and a half from now he’ll feel better.”

On if the emotion of the game was different from the last four games

“No, we just played better football, and that’s really the bottom line. We came out from the start and we did a lot of good things. We hadn’t been doing those things the past four weeks. So that was the key, to go out and execute and play good football.”

DL VONNIE HOLLIDAY

On getting a win

“This is what we were used to doing for six weeks. You don’t want to harp on that, but when Thanksgiving rolls around you want to win. So this was the start of a new season for us. After the four game slide, we had to have guys buying back in and seeing what it’s like to play smart, tough football. At times we didn’t always play smart but we’re working on it.”

On if the team rededicated itself against the Giants

“Well, you would like to think that you rededicate yourself every week, but we were just on a slide for whatever reason. We had a big team discussion last week about accountability and going out and laying it all on the line and playing smart football for sixty minutes. That was what we preached from the beginning, and I wasn’t even here in March, but I know that was what we were preaching. So it was good to get back in the win column and we’ve got to build on this.”

On stopping the Giants run game

“We knew it was going to be a tough game, a physical game, going against big [Giants RB] Brandon Jacobs, running the ball downhill. We also knew the importance of playing well on first and second down, which we hadn’t done the past four weeks. So to go out and play the way we did against the run, against a good physical football team, is very encouraging. At the same time, looking back at the last few weeks, and the let downs in the second halves [of those games], we played complementary football today. Special teams played well. Our gunners, especially [Broncos S] David Bruton, and the rest of those guys went down there and put the hammer down in the return game. And then offensively, we were moving the ball early in the game, just not putting a lot of points on the board, but scoring and using the clock. So on defense, we went out there playing that complementary game, and that’s the type of team we want to be.”

WR BRANDON MARSHALL

On making one-handed catches

“[Broncos QB] Kyle [Orton] told me to stop making him look bad because those were great balls. He said I could have caught them with two hands.”

On watching film to correct mistakes

“I really wasn’t too much off, but tonight I got a few opportunities to make plays. Kyle [Broncos QB Orton] believed in me and so I went to Coach [Broncos Head Coach Josh McDaniels] and got in his ear and told him I could make a play. So he said, ‘hey we’ll call it,’ and we moved the ball tonight.”

On the difference between today’s game and last week against the San Diego Chargers

“Honestly, I think it’s best for us as a team to worry about today’s game only. Back on March 17th when we first got together we said we wanted to play great ball in the beginning [of the season], but our season starts after thanksgiving. So it was great for our team to go out and play well.”

NY GIANTS HEAD CAOCH TOM COUGHLIN

General

“We played poorly tonight. There is no excuse for it. There’s no (excuse with the) short week, none of that stuff. I was very pleased with our preparation. We went in and organized the week. We felt good about our meeting time. We thought it was quality meeting time. Our meetings last night (and) our meetings this morning, we felt good about all of that. I felt we were in position to play. We knew what was all at stake. We just did not play well. Even at the half when we talked about it, we mentioned that if we could go out and shut them out in the second half, we would have our opportunities. We had two drives and two opportunities down on the fringe of the green, right at the edge of the green and came away with field goals rather than touchdowns, which would’ve, I think again, given us some gas in our tank to have some hope and have a chance to win this game. We just didn’t do what we could’ve done in those situations with touchdowns rather than field goals. I take my hat off to them and give credit to them. They played well. They played hard. We told our team that they would run the ball and they would try to come back and run the ball more against us. They did. They made some outstanding individual plays. Their quarterback played well and they took advantage of their opportunities. We had two turnovers. They scored ten points off of turnovers. We had another turnover later on. It’s very disappointing to me to stand here in front of you to talk about this game because I really felt that we didn’t play well.”

On having only three first downs in the first half

“It was certainly just another example of the fact that we didn’t do much with the chances that we had. For whatever reasons, we didn’t have the tempo, we didn’t make any plays (and) we weren’t able to stay on schedule. There’s no production, obviously, and that is very frustrating.”

On calling a timeout on the Giants’ second offensive play

“Even though that took place, that was not an indication that there was any confusion. There’s no confusion. Our headsets from coach to quarterback were going out. (QB) Eli (Manning) did not get the play, the play clock was running down (and) he then took a timeout. Had there been communication from the sideline to the field, there would’ve been no timeout.”

On the Giants’ confidence for the rest of the season

“I still feel like we can play better. I’m just frustrated by some of the quality of our play. Even though we still had some good plays in coverage, we still gave up too many easy plays in coverage. I was disappointed when we put the ball on the ground. They had success against us. That’s where football starts. We were off track. We really did not get into any kind of rhythm when we ran the ball. We weren’t very successful with it. That’s where football starts to me, stopping the run. We thought this was going to be the night, but it wasn’t.”

On missing tackles behind the line of scrimmage

“We had some people in position. We weren’t able to get the ball carrier down. I think it was frustrating. It was very apparent early on. Sometimes we had two or three people (in the backfield).”

On their game plan to defeat the Broncos

“The list of how to go about defeating the Broncos was really very simple because over the course of the last four games one, people would rush the ball on them; two, they would win the turnover battle, thus they would win the time of possession; (and) they would score in the green zone, and Denver was in the green zone the last four games only six times offensively. The formula for defeating Denver was very plain and simple, coming off the last four games they played. You can’t turn the ball over. We were in position. We were almost at mid-field, we were having a chance for a decent drive, we turned the ball over, they’d take it and they’d score.”

On the Broncos pass rush

“They were good because they really did not have anything else to defend. They rushed the passer, and on some occasions, we normally would have had help, and we didn’t get the help in that position. We had some other player controlling the ball where there was no help and they put pressure on the quarterback.”

On RB Brandon Jacobs

“It’s about our team, not about any individual.”

On S Michael Johnson’s status

“It’s listed as a groin (injury).”

NEW YORK GIANTS PLAYERS

QB ELI MANNING

On first half struggles offensively

“For this team, we had to get into third-and-manageable situations to give us the best chance to win, but we were not able to do that in the first half and weren’t able to stay on the field.”

On being 6-5

“We can deal with being 6-5, but we need to play better football. That’s our concern right now. We need to find ways to compete and play consistently and stay on the field longer.”

On difficulties finding a rhythm offensively

“We were hoping that we could build on last week. We wanted to get in situations where we could make plays throwing and running the ball. We weren’t making plays. They made a lot of plays and did a good job of mixing up their defense. We have got to make more plays.”

On difficulties running the ball

“They had safeties down, so we should be able to run the ball. But we got in situations where you couldn’t run. We gave up sacks and got into second-and-longs and third-and-longs and weren’t able to run.”

RB BRANDON JACOBS

On the loss

“We have got to go out and execute to win the game. I don’t think that they did anything special. We have got to play better than we did tonight. If not, we don’t have a chance to do anything.”

On the running game

“I think the coaches did a great job of putting us in the right situations. We just didn’t go out and execute on the field.”

On the short week

“They had a short week too. That is not the issue. I thought Coach Coughlin put us in a good situation to win, getting us ready for this game on the short week.”

RB DANNY WARE

On his second quarter fumble

“Somebody went low so I came up off my feet and someone hit me while I was in the air. It was a bad play by me. It won’t happen again.”

On how his head feels

“I’m fine.”

DE OSI UMENYIORA

On the loss

“We’re a good football team, we just played bad today. We can play better, myself included. Unfortunately we didn’t today and we lost the game.”

On Denver’s running game

“It wasn’t unexpected. They have a good scheme at running the ball, but we just didn’t execute today.”

On the rest of the season

“We have to stay focused. We are a good football team. Every game is a must-win for us, including this one. From here on out, every game is a must-win.”