After watching Terrelle Pryor run roughshod over defenses, the Giants held Oakland’s athletic quarterback to arguably his worst performance. He claims he was slowed down by his knee as much as by Big Blue, but after the Giants’ 24-20 win over the Raiders, chances are they don’t care.
“He’s a special player, but we bought into the fact we know he’s so elusive and everybody had to really get after him. When he broke contain everybody bottled him up and we were able to stop him,’’ said Jon Beason. “It starts off with having great coverage on the back end. … They did a lot of things to slow us down, but if guys do their job covering, there’s going to be an gap to the quarterback.’’
Pryor was 11-of-26 for 122 yards, no touchdowns and a key pick that Terrell Thomas returned for 65 yards. But despite a couple of escape efforts, Big Blue held Pryor to a season-low 19 yards rushing and 42.3 completion percentage, keeping him largely bottled up.
“Obviously I didn’t do it as well as I should’ve,’’ said Justin Tuck. “He’s slippery, man. There were five, six times where I felt like I should’ve had a sack and he put on the afterburners and makes us all feel like we’re running in quicksand. You’ve just got to find a way to make sure he doesn’t get out of the pocket. He did a few times but the defense was able to rally to that and keep him from making big plays like we’ve seen him do against other teams.’’
The 6-4, 233 lb. Pryor said his knee started acting up during the week, hindering his vaunted mobility.
“My knee is banged up … I don’t know. It got worse during the week. I want to play and help the team, but I just didn’t feel well today,’’ said Pryor. “I knew when I had pressure I wasn’t able to move the pocket and get up and move well. That’s a thing I knew going in, and when I woke up this morning I knew I was going to have trouble. It was definitely confirmed in the game.’’
The Giants sacked Pryor four times, hit him four more and forced a fumble, the latter when Mathias Kiwanuka took him down on 3rd-and-10 from the Oakland 46 with 3:28 left in the game.
“He definitely held the ball longer than average,’’ said Kiwanuka,. “It was a good designed call. I was just fighting and continuing to rush and at the point where if he still had the ball in his hand I was going to try and take it out.’’