Will to fight

Banks spoke in his weekly spot on WFAN yesterday to discuss déjà vu’ in the Bayou.

He starts out by stating, “that I’m starting to see this throughout the league with good players who chalk it up (as) ah well we prepared hard, these things happen (and) I don’t know why we didn’t take it to the field.”  We’ve heard this before but Banks goes on to state,  “I know that they don’t have enough guys willing to fight.  They don’t want it enough.  (Yet) they talk about it quite a bit.”  He reminisced about what Parcells used to say a lot, “are you willing to invest emotionally and physically into winning?”  He adds that  “the problem that the Giants will have the rest of the season is teams will come in wanting to take their heart and take their will away from them and that’s the position they put themselves in.  They tend to play the game on the terms of their opponent.”  Carl spoke with Jerry Reese before the game and Reese stated, “I can understand if teams have better players but I don’t like my team continue to be out physicaled and out-toughed.”  Bottom line Banks has “a feeling teams are going to come in and say ‘you know what, let’s keep pounding their offensive line (and) they’re going to quit.  Let’s keep pounding the run (and) they’ll quit’ ” there as well.

On the defensive side of the ball Banks states, “there is no secret that the Giants are shorthanded in the defensive backfield and teams are getting smarter” about how “they’ll exploit it.”  He puts the onus on the their pass rush, which “has to be effective if you know you have deficiencies.”
On the offensive line play, Banks feels that they are “not playing anywhere near consistent to even get bits and pieces of a running game going.  If they can just sustain blocks longer, they got guys who are on the roster who can run through arm tackles.  You (just) see so many guys getting pushed backwards.
Paul here.  A lot of what has gone on this season, and specifically lately, is nothing we haven’t seen in seasons past.  We can look back to a post from one of Banks interviews in December of 2009.  Below is an excerpt from that post:
“nobody really wants to fight which is really wrong as a (former) player speaking out” is, you guessed it, “disgraceful”.  Howard Cross and him were talking and stated that “there was a transition of guys who played when I was playing Armstead, Sehorn, and Strahan…guys that were fighters” and “that’s what they are lacking right now.”  To further his point: “you can have a lot of talent and that talent can have one mind set and it’s not a very tough one.”
Besides JPP and Rolle.  Who else had the fight in them on the defensive side of the ball?  There has been a leadership void since Strahan retired and no one has stepped up.  But then again, is their a will to fight for their coaches? Is their a will to fight for a scheme that is built to fail?
Look around the league at teams who are winning with clear “deficiencies.”  You have The Broncos, who mask the deficiency of a quarterback who cannot throw the ball like an NFL QB.  The Patriots have the worst ranked defense in the league, have no deep threat at the receiver position and they are winning. Banks feels strongly about how the pass rush has to step up to protect their liability in the defensive backfield.  Clearly that has not been working lately and will only get more difficult now with the absence of Osi.  Where are the adjustments, Mr. Fewell?