Ben McAdoo still has his players’ support — when they are attributing their names to their words.
The day after two unnamed players hammered the embattled head coach anonymously, claiming he has “lost the team,” is handing out fines “like crazy” and is practicing them too hard the day before games, several notable Giants bashed those players.
“I don’t understand why anybody would think that — to address your point why Coach McAdoo has lost the locker room — that’s false,” Damon “Snacks” Harrison said following practice Thursday. “Whoever was anonymous, whoever said it, is a coward. Flat out.”
It was another wild day at the Giants facility, where a game Sunday against the 49ers was the last thing on anybody’s mind. Instead, players defended their effort in this 1-7 season going nowhere and the performance of their under-fire coach, who told his side of the story on a day he usually doesn’t address the media.
- Team leaders Harrison, Landon Collins, Jonathan Casillas and Justin Pugh all ripped the anonymous players, wanting them to reveal themselves, calling them “cowards” and a “rat.”
- Every player who spoke Thursday said he believes McAdoo hasn’t lost the locker room, and Pugh said the criticized practice schedule hasn’t changed at all from last year.
- McAdoo hasn’t addressed the team, because he doesn’t know where the quotes are coming from, and said the players he has fined brought it upon themselves.
- Collins is confident the players are on the defensive side of the ball.
McAdoo didn’t criticize the ESPN report, but he refuted most of the claims, saying he has an open-door policy for his entire roster. He said he hopes the players who opted to air out the team’s dirty laundry come to him, and he also hinted it could be an inactive player. Despite the controversy surrounding McAdoo, the Giants don’t plan to fire him during the season, according to a Thursday ESPN report.
“It’s hard to help a player when they don’t put their name on a quote,” McAdoo said, referring to the website’s Wednesday report. “I don’t know who to address it with. There’s no name on the quote so to me there’s nothing to address. Put some names on the quotes and I’ll find out who I need to help.’’
As for the idea he’s fining players at a much higher rate, the coach said it was on the players to follow rules. Even cornerback Janoris Jenkins, coming off his suspension, said: “He’s just doing his job.”
As for the Saturday practices, McAdoo said those haven’t changed. They run from 48 to 53 minutes and are done at 80 percent capacity to gear up the players for Sunday. The Giants now have a recovery day on Friday, as they did each of the previous two years, and practice harder on Saturday.
“Some guys like it, some guys don’t,” McAdoo said. “There’s a philosophy to it. I believe in it.”
Every Giants player who spoke Thursday — and the only one to decline comment was Eli Apple — defended McAdoo and ripped the unnamed players. Casillas used the words “rat” and “cowards,” which was echoed by Harrison. They all pointed to McAdoo’s open-door policy.
“If you’re not man enough to put your name behind something that you feel, because that hasn’t been echoed to anybody in this locker room, we could’ve talked it out if you feel that way,” Harrison said. “It could have went differently. But point blank, whoever said that is a coward.”
“For a guy to say that, we just want him to come forward and be a man,” Casillas added.
The issue was not addressed among the players in a group setting, but Collins said he believes it comes from defensive players, and their identity will be found out.
“It’s going to be addressed,” Harrison said.
Casillas did admit the team’s effort Sunday in a 51-17 loss to the Rams was lacking. Late in the game, he could see teammates “kind of folded it up a little bit.”
Several players agreed the losing has contributed to the off-the-field issues that include two players, Jenkins and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, being suspended for disciplinary reasons, and these critical, anonymous quotes.
“We had the same coach, same practice schedule, same everything last year, and it wasn’t bothering anybody,” Pugh said. “We have to come together and get together as a team, and not have this fraction.”
Sunday would be the perfect time, against the winless 49ers in San Francisco. If not now, when?
“You go out and get embarrassed again, then something isn’t right,” Rodgers-Cromartie said. “Then you start asking questions, where are we mentally?”