He said it before the infamous Giants-Jets clash on Christmas Eve 2011, and it became one of his associated phrases: “Talk is cheap, play the game.”
After his team was defeated by the Cowboys on Sunday, coach Tom Coughlin repeated the mantra and was not happy his team flexed its verbal muscle last week.
“I don’t see anything that gets accomplished by the verbalization part of it,” he said Monday. “We’ve never been a team that has been one to provide bulletin-board material. I understand there was a little bit of that last week and I don’t believe in any of that. As a matter of fact, I speak out very strongly against it.”
Coughlin said he didn’t know about Jason Pierre-Paul’s and Terrell Thomas’ comments until after the game, and promised to bring it to the attention to his team on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the beaten Giants had to sit back and take the loss and the bravado that came from the Cowboys’ locker room afterwards.
“They got the win, they beat us twice this year, so they have the right to talk trash,’’ defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said. “You can’t get irritated with it now. You should have done something about it during the games.’’
This all started when Pierre-Paul said there will be “a lot of blood spilled out there” and a few days later Thomas not only guaranteed a Giants victory, he said the Cowboys might as well put his words on their bulletin board. That bravado found its way to Dallas but the Cowboys never came close to any verbal retaliation — until after they got the job done at MetLife Stadium.
Defensive tackle Jason Hatcher paraded around the Cowboys locker room with red ink on his face, exclaiming, “I just finished eating a Giant, and there’s some leftover blood. They said blood was going to be shed, right?”
Cornerback Orlando Scandrick took great delight in tweaking the Giants.
“They talked and they talked and they talked,” Scandrick said. “I’ve never in my life heard a team that was 4-6 talk like that. We were 5-5, and we knew we had no room to talk.”
Any offense taken to all this?
“Not at all,’’ Thomas said. “They won, that’s what you’re supposed to do. My statement, I stand by it. Our season was on the line and their season was on the line and they won the big game. They came into our house and won, the better team won.’’
Antrel Rolle said: “They won the game, they have the right to be as happy as they want to me. Had it been vice-versa, I’m sure we would have been just as happy.’’
Scandrick did offer something of a backhand compliment, saying “They have a great coach. … I don’t have any earthly idea why he let them talk like that.”
Giants defensive end Justin Tuck may have gotten the last laugh, however.
On Monday morning, he tweeted a picture of his two Super Bowl rings, with a message, “And for all the cowboy [sic] fan on my TL.”