Q&A wth HERM EDWARDS - 12/4

Dec 04, 2008, 3:22:53 PM

Highlights

Q: Tyler Thigpen and Tony Gonzalez have established a pretty good connection on and off the field and are meeting on Fridays. How did these two guys from pretty different backgrounds become so close?

HERM EDWARDS: “Well, when you think about it it’s not that hard to figure out. Tony, being the veteran that he is, anytime he thinks he can help a quarterback he’s going to do that.

“I wonder why? I think it showed up last week when he caught all those passes. Tony has taken the guy under his wing. He’s a veteran guy who can do that and in his career you can imagine all the quarterbacks he has played with just here. He’s played with a lot of different quarterbacks.

“He kind of liked this guy in the summer. He really did and liked some of his attributes and now that he’s playing a lot, I think, he’s helped him.

“What’s really been missing is we haven’t had the same quarterback this year. Now that it’s settled and we have a guy it’s part of (Thigpen’s) growth process. Any young quarterback is going to tell you that the things that help him are a good running game and a good tight end. Historically, that’s how it has always worked. He’s got a good tight end and we’ve been able to run the ball some too.”

Q: How much of what has happened in the game, though, added and proved this partnership?

EDWARDS: “It does and when he makes the throws and his ability to make some plays on his own. I think that’s what is so exciting about the guy. When the train is delayed he finds a way to make a play. That’s a credit to him. And Tony is good that way, too. I mean Tony can sense when a quarterback is in trouble and adjusts his routes very well and finds a way to get open.”

Q: Can you talk about how flexible Rocky Boiman has been for you?

EDWARDS: “He’s been moved all over the place. Now he’s move out of the ‘Mike’ and we’ve put DJ (Johnson) at ‘Mike’ and we’ve moved Rocky over to ‘Sam.’ Or ‘Will.’ He’s a pretty smart guy and what’s good is he’s played in the system before. He’s done a good job for a guy who has come in basically off the street. Probably never imagined he’d be starting but due to a lot of things he’s done a good job for us. That’s what is good about a veteran guy who is smart and is a team player all the way.

“He’s here early in the morning. He gets here and meets with linebacker coach. I remember in the first week he was getting here 6:30 in the morning and meeting with John (Bunting) and going through the different positions.”

Q: What made you want to move Derrick Johnson?

EDWARDS: “Just to look at it as we move on down the road next year. We’ve got some decisions we have to make. We want to see if he can play ‘Mike.’ He played it in college and was a very good player. I think he wants to do it, but it puts a little more burden on him too. You have to be more focused because you have to get the team lined up and call the plays and makes the checks. That might help him too.

“Playing in the middle of the field he has a good feel of the run alleys because he played it in college. He can go both ways as far as fitting the runs. You’re on an island sometimes and they move you from the core you’re not involved in the run game. Now he’s in the middle of the field and for the next month he’s going to play it.”

Q: It would seem that would suit his abilities rather than where he was playing.

EDWARDS: “What he’ll do is he will move around some. He won’t play there the whole day. Certain situations he might play ‘Will.’”

Q: How much of it is you haven’t had anyone to do that or maybe he hasn’t been as good as you would have liked?

EDWARDS: “There are a lot of different reasons and I could talk about it all day. But the basic point is he’s there now and we’re going to find out. That’s the great thing about our football team. We’re finding out about a lot of different players and then again we have a staff that’s flexible enough to change. We don’t get stuck. I always say you build your team around the players that you have and sometimes when injuries hit and things don’t go your way you’ve got to switch. We did that on offense and now we’re doing some things different on defense to try and help some guys. This is just another way to flip it, another way to gather some more information about certain players so we can make some good decisions when the season is over.”

Q: Are there other changes maybe you’re contemplating?

EDWARDS: “Not really, I think we’ve had some guys moving around there. Wade (Smith) has played guard some, Herbie (Taylor) had to play guard. But we don’t want to get into all that. I think the offensive line for the most part has been pretty steady.

“At the linebacker position we’ve been hurt a lot and have had a lot of different guys playing in and out. This is just another way to move Derrick to a position he can become a good player for us.”

Q: What about DuJuan Morgan?

EDWARDS: “He’s playing safety. He’s probably not playing as much as we would like but there are some reasons for that. He’s a (college) junior coming out. He’s kind of like Bernard (Pollard) was his first year. We’re trying to bring him along a bit slower like we did Bernard his first year. If you remember, Page played a lot more than Bernard did. Bernard was basically a special teams player, a spot player. Morgan is kind of in the same boat right now but we think he’s going to be a good football player.

“He’s played some but probably not as much as he would like right now. But then again he’s been nicked. He was nicked with the hand (injury) for a while; he had a hamstring (injury) too. He’s going through the growing pains of playing in this league.

Q: It’s been a while since you’ve been this healthy.

EDWARDS: “Yeah, we’re pretty good for the most part, Mark (Bradley) is the guy who hasn’t practiced in two guys and that’s not good.”

Q: You said you were going to have a conversation with your guys relative to having guns. Did you and what did you say? How was it received?

EDWARDS: “I just commented on it and talked about what it entails when something like that transpires. It affects the whole league, not just the Giants, every player and every member of the National Football League. You’ve got to be careful.

“The 12 o’clock rule rears its head again. Nothing good happens after 12 o’clock. That’s my basic rule and I’ve always told them that. If you go out and you’re looking for the girl to wink at you and she hasn’t winked at you before 12 she isn’t going to. You might as well go home.

“I think they understand where I’m coming from and what’s going to happen. It’s not a lot of fun to see a guy like that going to the pokey with the cameras flashing. It’s not good for anybody.”

Q: Thinking back to when you played are players different now?

EDWARDS: “No, this is different: television, talk shows. Everything that happens in this league is talked about whether it’s right or wrong or indifferent. That’s what you don’t understand when you sign on. When you sign your name on the contract there are a lot of things that go along side besides being a football player. Sometimes you lose sight of that.

“You have to be careful. I always say choose your friends, don’t let them choose you, that and watch where you go. I’m not saying players shouldn’t go out and enjoy themselves but there are certain places you’ve got to be careful. The position you’re put in sometimes is it’s going to be talked about if something bad happens. It happens all the time.

“It’s just not the league. There are 2,000 players in the league and if one or two do something wrong then the whole league gets affected. That’s what players need to understand.”

Q: With the rise of media there is more fame and more hangers-on and more threats. Does that correlate to more guns?

EDWARDS: “I can understand player safety and all that but I told my guy it’s real simple: if someone wants to take something from you, you give it to them. It’s a thing. You can get a new watch; you can get a new car. You can’t get a new you. You’re life’s not a dress rehearsal and you can’t say because I’m a football player I’m a tough guy. Your life is your life.

“Players are put in a spot where if I go certain places I’ve got to protect myself. Most of these guys now make enough money they can get security guys, get a driver, if that’s what they feel they need to do. It doesn’t cost that much.”

Q: Do you think more players are carrying guns now than they were 15 or 20 years ago?

EDWARDS: “Oh, I don’t know that. I think you look at players but you should look at people in general. I don’t know what that number is. I don’t own a weapon, never have owned a weapon and don’t want a weapon. But I think some players have them and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just think when you come in this league there are certain things you can’t do. Most players are not secret service agents or FBI agents, so they can’t carry a gun.

“Whether you own one recreationally and shoot, well, that’s fine.”

Q: If somebody said one quarter of the players in this league own guns would you say that might be accurate?

EDWARDS: “I don’t really know. There’s nothing wrong with owning a gun. You have a right to own a gun but how you possess it, there are laws for that.”

Q: What sort of things do you look for about a guy as it pertains to something like this?

EDWARDS: “It’s a lot of things. It’s not just one thing. I think the first thing you think about when you evaluate players is where did he grow up, how did he grow up. You lose sight of that. But it all starts from somewhere. Then you think he might struggle here, he might struggle there. Can we help him? See, when you draft players you try to help them. I’ve always felt that way as a coach. You try to make them better men, too. Help them be better men. That’s a little bit of your obligation as a coach, too, because then they’ll be really good football players, in my opinion.

“All those things you have to factor in: the history of a guy, then you have to make a decision. I’m talking about them all. And then sometimes players make mistakes.

“I can imagine what the Giants are going through, especially in New York. I’ve been through that deal.”