Observations from Giants Media Day

MDS made some observations from Giants Media Day earlier.

Now that we've been kicked out of Lucas Oil Field and posted some early comments from the Giants, it only seems fair that I make a few takes from the Giants' media session.

1. Jason Pierre-Paul has a favorite nickname.  While the second year player likes “JPP” and “Beast,” his favorite nickname is the “Haitian Sensation.” Pierre Paul talked about his “rough” journey from working at Boston Market to help feed his family. He wants to “put on a show” on Sunday for those in Haiti. He even broke out some creole in conversation during his session.

2. Brandon Jacobs is tired of slow starts. He's struggled to get into a groove early in games and couldn't hide his frustration. He expects a physical game Sunday.

3. A Ryan Leaf mention. Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said he thought Leaf could have had a successful NFL career if Gilbride had more time to work with him in San Diego.

4. The Giants are ready to roll.  New York seemed even more anxious than the Patriots to get done with Media Day and move on to football. Pierre-Paul said he was ready to play last week.

“It is just a lot of hoopla. We are just ready to play football and go out there and have fun. Just staying focused this week is the main key,” Ahmad Bradshaw said.

5. Eli, evolved: Giants offensive players all thought that a big key to this season was Eli Manning's ability to extend plays and make throws outside the pocket. We'll have more on this later in the week.

6. Watching a Japanese game show host try to communicate with Pierre-Paul was just as ridiculous as you'd expect. That is all.

7. The power of the NFL was in the stands. MDS pointed it out earlier, but it bears repeating. The fans loved being a part of Media Day. Twenty minutes after it was over, most of the fans remained in the crowd soaking up the experience.

We're not really what that experience entailed, but the fans just wanted a taste of anything Super Bowl. In five years of covering the Super Bowl, I haven't seen a host city more excited about having the game.

If Tom Coughlin strikes you as the kind of taskmaster you wouldn't want to work for, think about how Giants guard Chris Snee must feel: Snee is Coughlin's son-in-law, which means that not only does he have to perform to Coughlin's exacting standards during the work week, but he also doesn't get any presents if he isn't at least five minutes early to Christmas dinner.

Fortunately, Snee says Coughlin has started to mellow — not that the grandfather of Snee's children is always grandfatherly, but that he's at least a little friendlier than he was earlier in his coaching career. Snee was asked today if Coughlin is warmer and fuzzier, and while he wasn't prepared to go that far, he did say he has seen changes in his coach and father-in-law.

“Warmer? Fuzzier? I don't know if I'd use those adjectives, but he's lightened up a lot and we made reference to that four years ago when we were here,” Snee said. “How he kind of changed in that regard, getting to know players more, getting players to know the softer side of him, the side that family members see. He shows that but then again he still has his beliefs that he sticks to. That's what makes him more successful.”

Snee said he and Coughlin have developed a close relationship, but there's one thing Snee would like to do with his father-in-law that he didn't do four years ago: Carry Coughlin on his shoulders after winning the Super Bowl.

“It's eight years of having this relationship,” Snee said. “So we got it ironed out pretty good.”

Bears running back Matt Forte's contract is up, and he'll be eligible for free agency on March 13. NFL teams can begin assigning franchise tags on February 20.

On Tuesday, the Bears publicly confirmed that they'll either be signing Forte to a long-term deal or tagging him between those two dates.

“We'd like to (strike a long-term agreement),” Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips told ESPN 1000 Chicago. “But as (new G.M.) Phil (Emery) pointed out, we obviously will at least consider placing the franchise tag on him. We don't have any intention of letting Matt hit the open market.”

The 2012 franchise tag for running backs is expected to cost roughly $ 8 million. The Panthers paid DeAngelo Williams a five-year deal worth in excess of $ 8 million per season in July 2011, and Forte's agents would surely settle for no less on their own long-term arrangement. Forte is a much better back than Williams.

Thanks to Carolina's overspending, the franchise tag looks like a borderline bargain for the Bears.

In eight seasons as head coach of the Giants, Tom Coughlin has spent enough time on the hot seat to get burned on his backside. But Giants owner John Mara has always stood by Coughlin, and Coughlin has rewarded that with one Vince Lombardi Trophy and a chance at another on Sunday.

Today mara said he thinks Coughlin epitomizes exactly what a Giants head coach should be, not because Coughlin is a strict disciplinarian, but simply because Coughlin wins.

“Too many people make too big a deal out of, ‘He brings discipline and everything,'” Mara said. “We just felt like he was a winner and he would work so hard and be so devoted to putting a winning team on the field.”

Mara says he likes having a coach who's focused solely on the task at hand and not on becoming a New York celebrity.

“That's what we were looking for: a guy who was that dedicated and that hard-working and didn't care about his image and doing TV commercials or whatever,” Mara said. “We wanted a guy that was devoted to the X's and O's and coaching and that's what we got.”

Mara didn't mention the NFL's other New York head coach, Rex Ryan, but the two of them are a study in contrasts: Ryan embraces the celebrity that comes along with coaching, while Coughlin seems to see celebrity as a necessary evil. Another contrast between them is that Ryan guarantees Super Bowls, while Coughlin coaches in Super Bowls.

The ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2008, Mark Herzlich missed the entire 2009 season after being diagnosed with cancer and wasn't the same player in 2010, resulting in every NFL team passing on him in the 2011 NFL draft. But the Giants picked Herzlich up as an undrafted free agent, and now he's in the Super Bowl, and Herzlich says focusing on a return to football is what got him through cancer treatments.

At today's Super Bowl Media Day, Herzlich reflected on the difficult road he took to Indianapolis.

“After six hours of chemotherapy, you're sitting there and your body just feels drained,” Herzlich said. “You don't want to move, but I said, ‘I am going to be playing football again in eight months, so I need to go and work out. I need to go ride a bike, get some cardio in.' That's what I did. I made a highlight video for myself from my 2008 season. The real bad days, I would put that in in the chemo room and watch that kind of on repeat over and over again just to kind of see myself succeeding. That's something that as you go through things, you learn that you have to see yourself succeed, whether mentally or actually in person. That can help you do it.”

Herzlich said he hopes there are people going through the same thing now who draw inspiration from him on Sunday.

“There are people out there who are going through cancer right now who see that and say, ‘Hey, if he is doing it, I can do it,'” Herzlich said.

Most people in Indianapolis are talking about the Giants and the Patriots this week, but Warren Sapp has a few bones to pick with the Lions.

The NFL Network analyst unloaded on defensive coordinator Gunter Cunningham and defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh during an interview on Tuesday. He slammed Cunningham for his failure to adjust during games as well as his unwillingness to play Suh and Nick Fairley at the same time on the defensive line this season.

“And then rotating Suh and Nick Fairley behind each other where now you only have to deal with one at a time,” Sapp said, via Anwar Richardson of MLive.com. Then at the end of the game when you're getting the (explicative) beat out of you, you want to put it out there to see what it looks like? Really? You never tried this in practice? Been there all week long and never tried it? It's not like you're hitting and banging. You didn't have no pads on. I mean, put them out there. It ain't like you're going to wear them out. Give me a break.”

Suh took flak from Sapp for his lack of development in his second NFL season. He said Suh never came up with a way to beat people when he couldn't simply overpower them, something that Sapp believes became more difficult after Suh had shoulder surgery in the offseason. Sapp's slam included a hint that Suh's endorsements got in the way of his focus on the game.

“You got to look at yourself and say where can I get better. I knew I needed to get better at my strength and my conditioning and then my pass rush. I went into the offseason and worked on nothing but my pass rush, speed and run and just go at. You got to grind at the job. This is your profession. There's nothing else. Subway will work around your schedule, I guarantee you.”

With a few days to think about it, Giants wide receiver Mario Manningham backtracked from his original derisive statements about Patriots cornerback/wide receiver Julian Edelman.

But Manningham didn't backtrack too far.

“We know he's a great player, but we want to go out and do what we have to do to win. No matter what it takes. He plays wide receiver. He's not a real defensive back,” Manningham said. “Did he get drafted as a defensive back? We have a little bond going on knowing that we can beat somebody. We're confident. I hope he's out there.”

Edelman may not be a real defensive back, but he played one in college. And he knows what bothers offensive players. He's not afraid to be physical.

“He's a hell of a football player,” Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said Tuesday. “He looks like a guy that has been on the offensive side and had people grab and hold him. And now he's now trying to reverse the process. He looks like a good defensive back.”

The Patriots believe Edelman succeeds because he likes to mix it up. Deion Branch said he's been lobbying for his own defensive snaps for weeks, but the coaches won't bite.

“He loves to cover me and Wes,” Branch said. “That's the highlight of his practice. Julian is one of those guys that nags you a lot. As a receiver, you hate that. That's his style. He's an aggressive guy.”

“I like Julian. He's a beast. He has that mentality, that beast mode in him,” safety Patrick Chung said. “He's tough, he's fast, he's physical. I have no worries about Julian. He's good.”

No matter what happens Sunday, it's remarkable Edelman can play defense at such a high level considering the demands of the position. He's playing offense, defense, and special teams on the game's biggest stage.

“You gotta understand,” Branch said. “He's in the offensive meeting room, then the defensive meeting room. So he's missing half of what they say in the defensive meeting room because he's with us.”

Reuters

The New York media had a sour reaction to Tom Brady expressing hope about winning the Super Bowl on Sunday and the Boston media almost got a chance to return fire during Super Bowl Media Day.

Giants safety Antrel Rolle, who hasn't been shy about expressing himself at any point this season, made a pretty plainspoken statement about who he thought would win the Super Bowl.

“We're going to win this thing,” Rolle said, via Jenny Vrentas of the Newark Star-Ledger. “We're going to win this thing for a lot of good reasons.”

It's nothing new for Rolle, who said some weeks ago that the Giants' championship quest could not be denied. Before any Beantown writers could take Rolle to task for his Joe Namath impression, he backed off when someone asked him a follow-up question about guaranteeing a win.

“I didn't say we're going to win, I said we're going to go out there and do whatever it takes to win,” Rolle said. “I didn't guarantee anything.”

There will surely be quibbles with Rolle's assertion that saying “we're going to win this thing” does not constitute saying that the Giants were going to win, but the whole furor over players expressing confidence or expectation that they are going to win gets overblown. Rolle, Brady and every other player in this game has every right to feel like they are going to emerge victorious on Sunday. If they should express that in response to a question at Media Day or at a pep rally, so be it because the result of this game isn't likely to have anything to do with what they say.

The Colts officially made Bruce Arians their new offensive coordinator on Tuesday, but the old one doesn't look like he's going anywhere.

Jason La Canfora of the NFL Network reports that Clyde Christensen will remain with the Colts as quarterbacks coach in 2012. Per La Canfora, the Colts considered moving in another direction and also considered moving Christensen to work with wide receivers, which he did for three years before becoming the coordinator, but settled on moving him to the quarterback spot.

If the Colts move on from Peyton Manning and select Andrew Luck, there will be some interesting symmetry between the two men. Manning's first quarterbacks coach in Indy was Arians and his last offensive coordinator was Christensen.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers thinks it's time for the players in the Pro Bowl to step up their play.

Rodgers, who started for the NFC in Sunday's game, said he thought there were some players on the field who looked foolish with their lack of effort.

“I'll be honest with you,” Rodgers said on his radio show on ESPN 540. “I was a little bit disappointed. I felt like some of the guys on the NFC side embarrassed themselves.”

Rodgers said that when he's in the Pro Bowl, he tries to give a good enough effort and put on a show for the fans, and he said it surprised him to see how many Pro Bowlers didn't seem to care.

“Overall, I was just disappointed by the lack of pride by some of the players that played in the game,” Rodgers said.

Most of the 12.5 million fans who watched the Pro Bowl probably agree with Rodgers — it was obvious that a lot of guys out there didn't care whether they got the $ 50,000 winners' share or the $ 25,000 losers' share. Increasing the payout for the players on the winning team and decreasing the payout for the players on the losing team may be the way to fix that.

Perhaps the Eagles' biggest offseason decision is whether to retain free agent wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who held out of the start of 2011 training camp before posting three-year lows in receiving yards and touchdowns, and a career-worst punt return average.

In his first media appearance since Week Seventeen, Eagles coach Andy Reid sat down with reporters for 45 minutes Tuesday to discuss the future of his ball club.

“I thought he matured and showed maturity this season,” Reid said of Jackson. “I think he's done that every year he's been here. But he showed it, stood up and admitted to everybody that he didn't handle things the right way. I will tell you the last six games, he did a nice job for us. … You saw a different attitude the last five or six games.”

Jackson averaged 62 receiving yards per game in the season's final six weeks. His average was 66 yards over Jackson's first nine appearances. (He missed Week Ten due to a team-imposed suspension.)

The Eagles can franchise tag Jackson, meet his long-term contract demands, or let him hit the open market. Reid was noncommittal about the team's plans.

“We're going to go through and look at all that,” Reid said. “We really haven't gotten to that point. … We're analyzing the free agents.”

The Chiefs couldn't stop Phil Emery from leaving the team to become Bears general manager, but they did stop him from bringing one of their coaches with him.

Sean Jensen of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the Chiefs blocked the Bears from interviewing quarterbacks coach Jim Zorn for a similar job on Lovie Smith's staff. NFL teams are permitted to deny assistants under contract the chance to interview for assistant coaching jobs on other teams.

The Chiefs are looking for a new offensive coordinator and this move could be seen as a sign that Zorn would be under consideration for that position. There haven't been any signals out of Kansas City that it is a possibility, but Zorn has wound up getting unexpected promotions in the past. He was hired as the Redskins offensive coordinator in 2008 and promoted to head coach a month later.

The Bears are in need of a quarterbacks coach who can oversee all aspects of the passing game for new offensive coordinator Mike Tice. Jensen reports that Alex Van Pelt is under consideration for the role.

It looks like the Patriots will get their starting right tackle Sebastian Vollmer back in the lineup for the Super Bowl for the first time since Week 12.

Offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia told WEEI that Vollmer will play in the Super Bowl. It's unclear if Vollmer will start over rookie Nate Solder. At the very least, we'd expect Vollmer to get some snaps as a sixth offensive lineman.

Dante Scarnecchia's information continues the surprising amount of injury information New England has provided this week. Bill Belichick has updated Rob Gronkowski and Vollmer's practice status, even though he wasn't required to. Running back Stevan Ridley says he'll be active for the game.

It's possible Vollmer will have to work more this week because starting left tackle Matt Light is sick. Light missed media availability on Monday and Media Day on Tuesday because of an illness, Phil Perry of CSNNE.com confirmed.

We're not sure if Light missed practice Monday, but it would still be a huge surprise if his availability was in doubt for the game.

Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul didn't have it easy growing up, with parents who were Hatian immigrants struggling to get by. And although he was a star in both football and basketball, he strongly considered quitting sports in high school so that he could help his family when his father, who is blind, was struggling to find work.

“I had a job to take care of my parents to take care of some bills at the house because my daddy wasn't working,” Pierre-Paul said at Super Bowl Media Day. “I had to figure out how to make that all work at one time. I was working at Boston Market. . . . I told my coach, I can't play football because I have to make money to help my mom.”

Eventually, Pierre-Paul worked things out with his manager to get a schedule that allowed him to come in after practice, which meant he would have football immediately after school, then work immediately after football, and he wouldn't get home until after midnight.

Now Pierre-Paul has a five-year, $ 20 million contract, so the days of helping out the family by working at Boston Market are well behind him. But he says he's still motivated by those days, and inspired by his father.

“Just knowing my dad, my dad never quit no matter what,” Pierre-Paul said. “Since I was born, he couldn't see. But it is what it is. He never let that stop him.”

ESPN aired an “exclusive” interview with Colts quarterback Peyton Manning on Tuesday afternoon. During the first part of the conversation — the interview will apparently air in separate parts — Manning confirmed to Trey Wingo that he plans to play football in 2012.

“Doctors and I have been in good, constant communication,” said Manning. “And I'm very encouraged by what they've said. Everything's right on point, I'll be cleared and ready to play.”

Unfazed by reports that his playing days are over, Manning is continuing his rehab process with full intentions of continuing his career.

After Part One of the Wingo interview, Adam Schefter suggested on ESPN's The Insiders program that Manning is destined to become “the most decorated and high-profile free agent in NFL history.”

Reuters

Patriots running back Stevan Ridley played in all 16 regular-season games and was the team's second-leading rusher, but after fumbling in the regular-season finale and again in the first playoff game, Bill Belichick benched him for the AFC Championship.

However, Ridley said today that he'll be active and ready to contribute again on Sunday.

“This game I'm gonna be dressed and out on the field,” Ridley said, via CSNNE.com, “so hopefully I'll get some carries.”

Ridley said Belichick didn't talk to him about fumbling before declaring him inactive for the AFC Championship, and he didn't have to.

“That's just kind of how coach Bill works,” Ridley said. “He's not really gonna explain anything. He's just going to make his coaching moves and we just have to kind of follow suit. For us we just have to go out there and do what he tells us to do.”

Starting with holding onto the ball.