|
Riotmaker
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: South Burlington, Vermont
Posts: 5,717
|
Reese Looks Back On A Roller Coaster Season.
Quote:
EAST RUTHERFORD - Giants general manager Jerry Reese enjoyed a successful and unforgettable first season on the job, culminating in last week’s victory over New England in Super Bowl XLII. This week, Reese sat down with Giants.com and reflected on the 2007 season and what lies ahead.
GM Jerry Reese made all the right moves this year which led the Giants to championship.
Q: Have you had time to reflect on the events of the past week?
Reese: “It has been kind of surreal for me. Everything has happened so fast. Coming right out of the airplane getting back we are preparing for our draft meetings (that started on Friday) and after the draft meetings, which last for about eight days, we will go right into the Scouting Combine the next week. We will be there for about seven days and then free agency will start in March and we will start working out college players and guys that we like. It is a pretty vicious cycle, but the reward is great, obviously. We worked hard, everybody has worked hard to get us to this point and the reward is great - winning a Super Bowl. That makes us excited and wanting to do it again.”
Q: Was there ever a point where you stopped and thought, ‘Wow, we won the Super Bowl’?
Reese: “I have. I have a couple times. (Wednesday) night I stayed here late, and when I got home I was just kind of lying in the bed and I was telling (his wife) Gwen, I said, ‘Gwen, we won the Super Bowl.’ And she did something like this (held up her index finger). So we get giddy about it sometimes, we kind of laugh about it, but it is an exciting time for us.”
Q: Did you have butterflies watching the game-winning drive?
Reese: “I am actually pretty calm all the time when I watch games. Even the last drive I felt very confident. We have seen Eli (Manning) do it before late in the game, there was a lot of time left on the clock, we had timeouts, and I was very confident that we could take the ball down the field and win this football game. I really wasn’t nervous about it at all, plus I don’t get nervous at games anyway.”
Q: After the Giants scored, did you have any concern about leaving Tom Brady 35 seconds to operate?
Reese: “No, it was a long way to go. I thought with 35 seconds there is no way. With the way our defense was playing, I thought there is no way they are going to score with 35 seconds left."
Q: Who did you ride down in the elevator with and what was that like?
Reese: “Actually, we couldn’t get on the elevator. They were holding the elevators, so (assistant general manager) Kevin Abrams and I went down the stairs. We ran all the way down the stairs to the field, and we saw the last couple of plays - the last couple of long throws with the few seconds left. That is how we got down to the field, we ran.”
Q: So the GM of the winning team had to run down the stairs to celebrate?
Reese: “Yeah, Kevin Abrams and I were high-tailing it down the stairs and got there for the last couple of plays."
Q: What was that like?
“It was just an exciting feeling, just exciting. It was really kind of a numb kind of a feeling. It was just unbelievable. To see that one second on the clock and to see us do that victory play with one second left, it was just an incredible feeling. It is really hard to explain the feeling. Just to know that we did it and we were the world champions and we knocked off one of the greatest teams of all time. It wasn’t about that for us, it was about us just winning one game, and that has been our focus the whole season; let’s just win one game this week. They were trying to win 19 in a row and we were just trying to win one in a row. That has been our focus the whole season and it is a testament to our players and our coaching staff to stay focused like that. I am just happy for the players and the coaches.”
Q: Have you heard from other GMs or people from your past?
Reese: “It seems like I have heard from everybody in the world. My email is always full, my voicemail is always full, and my cell phone’s text messages are always full. I just can’t catch up trying to return all the phone calls and saying thank you. The amount of support has been tremendous. Just from my home town, my little town in Tiptonville (Tennessee) and from people that I went to college with, grew up with, went to kindergarten with. A guy called me, I can’t think of his name, he left me a message, he said, ‘I played high school football against you when I was at the Tennessee Academy and I played against you guys and you guys beat the crap out of us, but I just could not stand by and not call to say congratulations to you.’ He said, ‘Yes, I know it was 27 years ago and you have no idea who I am, but I just wanted to say congratulations.’ I have been getting tons of calls and it just never ends with the support and the people that are so happy.
“The number one calls that are gratifying for me are people like Doug Williams (who 20 years ago with the Washington Redskins became the first African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl). Doug has called me about three different times, emailed me, texted me, and he called me and he just said, ‘You made me so proud.’ So those are the kind of calls because Doug really kind of paved the way for African-Americans, saying, ‘You know what, there can be an African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl, there can be an African-American general manager who can lead his team to the Super Bowl.’ He just said how much it means to him to see me be able to… and really the thing about it was it was kind of surreal to see him just so happy, this year he was the guy to present the trophy (Williams carried the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the podium set up on the field after the game). To see him walking up with the trophy to pass it on to us 20 years later after he was MVP of the Super Bowl, won the Super Bowl for the Redskins, it was really kind of surreal. It was like a passing of the torch kind of thing. It was chilling for me to see that. I was thinking about, it was flashing through my head, as he was walking up the stairs to that podium with that trophy that he was passing it on. I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do a good job and have a chance to pass the torch to someone else, maybe 20 years from now or whatever. Maybe two years from now or five years from now, but I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do well. Like I said at the beginning, failure is really not an option for me with this job on a lot of levels.”
Q: What do you think the TV ratings in Tiptonville were for the Super Bowl?
Reese: “I guarantee everyone in Tiptonville was watching that. I talked to Evan Jones, who runs the Lake County Banner, our only little paper there, and he said, ‘Man everybody in town was just focused on the game and everybody was so excited and all through the playoffs everybody had just been riveted with this whole situation.’ He said that we when beat the Green Bay Packers to go into the Super Bowl he said it was just like an explosion in town, people were just driving around blowing their horns. My little nephew, who is a sophomore running back in high school - we live close to the high school - but my little nephew named Erin, after we won the game against Green Bay he just ran out of the house and ran all the way to the high school and ran back and he said he just couldn’t stop running. He just couldn’t stop running, he was so excited and everybody was just so excited. It is unbelievable.”
Q: Did you hear from other general managers?
Reese: “I heard from several general managers around the league and I have gotten notes and emails and phone calls from several guys. Really, the number one guy was (New England vice president) Scott Pioli. He really made a big effort to find me after the game to say congratulations and he said we did a hell of a job putting that team together. He said, ‘You guys were better than us tonight and congratulations.’ That was very classy for him to do that and I appreciate that. He could have just gotten on the bus, but he made a big effort to find me, and I appreciate him doing that.”
Q: Winning the Super Bowl is a great start, but for you is it just a start?
Reese: “Yes, it was a start. It is every general manager’s dream and every organization’s dream to win Super Bowls and for it to happen so quickly has really been like a storybook or fairy tale, or however you want to say that. First of all you have to go back and look at our team that Ernie (Accorsi) left us. We inherited a really good team that Ernie left us. We did what we could in free agency. Number one, we signed (Shaun) O’Hara - that was a major signing. People don’t talk about that, but that was a big signing for us, to keep O’Hara. We signed Kawika Mitchell and he did a tremendous job for us with his play, and we got some guys off the waiver wire: Madison Hedgecock and Domenik Hixon, who really contributed in a big way. Even Reuben Droughns, when we traded for him. Reuben ended up scoring six touchdowns and playing on special teams for us and contributing some other stuff for us, so he was a strong contributor for us as well. We did some things, obviously we did enough, and plus the draft. And we did okay in the draft.”
Q: Normally by now you would have met with the coaches to discuss your players. How much has the long postseason run changed your offseason schedule?
Reese: “The first thing you do after your season is over is evaluate your own players. This late into the year and playing so deep into the season and playing 24 games, it pushes everything back. Now we are scrambling trying to get our players evaluated and we are scrambling trying to get ready for our draft meetings. Right now, it is a scramble working late hours trying to get everything prepared to move forward. Last year was good, but it is a new year now, we are starting on a new year already.”
Q: How does it effect preparing for the draft when you have so little time to evaluate your own roster?
Reese: “I think everybody knows our roster pretty well, but we want to sit down and discuss it and make sure we are on the same page. That is important to us, to make sure we are on the same page as the staff here with our players. Some people may have a little bit different opinion about players, so we want to make sure that we are on the same page and that we discussed each and every one of our players and move forward appropriately.”
Q: At what point do you turn your attention to some of the Giants’ free agents?
Reese: “That is part of the process. We have to sit down and talk and discuss what we want to do. Those guys are definitely the first guys in the conversation, the guys that are our free agents and how we are going to handle those. We have Gibril (Wilson), we have (Reggie) Torbor, we have (Kawika) Mitchell, and there are a couple more guys I believe - (Jeff) Feagles and (Lawrence) Tynes. There has to be some quick discussion so we can make some decisions quickly on how we want to handle those situations. We have to put our heads together as a staff and do that."
Q: Is it tough to cut ties with players that helped you win the Super Bowl?
Reese: “That is the nature of the business. You always want to improve your roster; you don’t want to lay dead with your roster. We won the Super Bowl and this team was a tremendous team together, but if there are places where you think you can improve your roster, that is what my job is. It is what they hired me to do and we will take a professional stance on that. If we feel like we can get better at positions, we will. That is just the part that is sometimes kind of tough, because you get around some players who have been here for a while, or maybe some players who have been here for a short time, but they were all here together to win a Super Bowl and you have a close connection with players. Still, on the professional side, you have to do what is best for your team to improve your team, so if there is a way we can improve the team we will definitely try to improve the team.”
Q: Is it harder to make those decisions because this team won the Super Bowl?
Reese: “It is harder. It is hard whether you win the Super Bowl or not, that makes it harder. But no matter if you win a Super Bowl or not, when it is time to move on in a different direction for players, especially if they have been in your building for a while, it is very difficult to do. I think most players understand that it is the nature of the business and it is not personal, it is just business.”
Q: Will you be as involved in these draft meetings as you have been in the past?
Reese: "Yes. But we hired Marc Ross (as Director of College Scouting). Marc is very competent and I think he will take us to a whole different level in the draft room, so we are looking forward to the draft meetings. I will sit in on all the draft meetings and we will try to get those guys lined up. First, we will get them lined up on the board so we can see who we like going into the combine, and then we will evaluate what they do at the combine. Obviously, we evaluate guys in the spring workouts, and we will try to pick them in April.”
Q: The Giants’ first selection will be the 31st in the first round? How does drafting so low affect your plans?
Reese: "Obviously, there are a lot of good players off the board when you start to pick, but just because we are 31 doesn’t mean we will be picking at 31. There are always situations where you might have an opportunity to move up and pick a player. We are not stuck in that spot. We can move up or move back, so you never know what can happen. There are a lot of things, a lot of scenarios, that can unfold on draft day. If we have to stick at 31, there will be a player there that we like.”
Q: Did anything that happened in the postseason change what your original thoughts are about free agency this offseason?
Reese: “No, I think, again, you kind of evaluate the team as you go through the season. There are some places where we need to - I don’t think a lot of it changed, it was great to win the game, but I think our focus in the offseason is probably going to be the same. There are positions that we need to sure-up a little bit to get a little stronger at.”
Q: Do you always go in with the idea of getting younger?
Reese: "Young is good. Young is good and talented is good. You have to be young and you have to be talented. What has been a good characteristic of some of the players that we have gotten in is just their character that they bring. We have been bringing good character players in and that comes into play. When things get tough we don’t have a lot of people yapping and fracturing the team. We have a strong sense of team here and that goes a long way. When you have all 53 guys pulling in the same direction it is much easier to win a football game.”
Q: Is it safe to say you want to keep the coaching staff together?
Reese: “Yes, our coaching staff has done a tremendous job. But we have had several requests for some of our coaches to interview at different places. We would like to keep the coaching staff intact, but that is the nature of the beast. You win the Super Bowl and your coaches are hot commodities. If we have to replace some coaches, we will do that. It is all about making adjustments in the National Football League, you have to adjust with your coaching staff sometimes, and you have to adjust with your players. It is all about making adjustments and trying to maintain some stability at the same time.”
Q: What can you say about the job that Tom Coughlin did this season?
Reese: "The first time we sat down together, Tom and I had a long heartfelt meeting and we talked about everything. What we came out of the meeting with is that there needed to be some changes made. I have said this to several people, Tom said there were some things about him that he could change, and he showed that he was the leader of the team. We talk about being a team and he was the leader of the team. He set the pace, I should say, he set the pace for being part of the team. He made some changes and our players recognized it right away and the players bought into being a team. We have so many selfless guys. We have one Pro Bowler on a Super Bowl championship team. You win championships with David Tyrees, you win championships with David Diehls. Those kinds of guys, those guys just come to work and say, ‘Coach, what do you want me to do?’ You win with those kinds of people. It was a team effort. It was a total team effort from our front office, from our support staff, everybody in this building, it was a complete team effort, to our equipment manager, our video people, everybody, all our personnel staff, it was a complete team effort to get to this point and we got rewarded for it.”
|
This really just poses the question towards me, will we make it next year? It's questionable and depends upon how our draft goes.
http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/sto...story_id=26963
__________________
|
Reese Looks Back On A Roller Coaster Season.
Linear Mode
