Compiled by Gene Wang
Washingtonpost.com Correspondent
Web Posted: Monday, September 7, 1998; 1:27 a.m. EDT

Norv Turner
Q: How do you feel about the game?
A: We are going to be a good football team. You can't do the things we did today and be a good football team on the road. We throw a touchdown pass that should put us up 14-3, and we have a holding penalty in a situation where we are in a protection. There's no reason to hold. It's ridiculous. Obviously in the third quarter we gave the ball away. The three interceptions were poor decisions, poor throws, and we give them 14 points there, then later we fumble.

Q: How will the team handle all the problems?
A: Well, you keep working at it. As I said, you are in a protection which gives you a chance to be doubling a guy, and you get a holding penalty. Either you get a better guy in there, or you get him to quit doing that. We feel that we are playing the best guy there, the best guy that we got right now. The interceptions, I'd like to think that those had been eliminated a long time ago. As I said, the first one, that was just a horrible decision. If you don't like the deep ball, you throw the ball up in the stands, and you keep playing.

Q: How would you evaluate Trent Green's performance?
A: He made a bunch of plays. I thought Gus threw the ball accurately in the first half and made some plays. Trent give you a little more mobility when a tam is overpowering you, like New York was with the rush. So, obviously it is something that we have to look at.

Q: Was the touchdown to Michael Westbrook that got taken away the turning point?
A: That is a big play, but the game is 10-10 at the half. As I have said all week, in the first game of the season you are going to incur some difficulty. We have a busted call, and they get a free receiver running down the sideline to tie it up. The big play and the turning point has to be the interception. From our own five, we are going to take a shot. We have maximum protection, and it should never turn into a turnover. You should never have a sack, fumble or interception on that play.

Quarterback Trent Green
Q: What is your take on tonight's game?
A: I think it was good for me to get some game action. You know obviously I'm disappointed with the loss. . . . You know the fumble I had was a key factor to that, and I'm pretty disappointed about that. It would have been a tight game without that.

Tackle Brad Badger
Q: What about tonight's loss?
A: You got to go into battle each week, and today we didn't play very well, and you just got to learn from your mistakes and get better next week. What did they have to do – two plays for twenty-one points? For the defense the try and stop them – you can't do that. It's all of our faults. For the offense, there are things we can do better, and we have to do better to be successful.

Safety Stanley Richard
Q: What happened out there?
A: As a football team, we didn't do what we needed to. It's frustrating because it puts us in a bad situation. We come out on the field on the one-yard line. That doesn't give us a chance to win. When we come out on the field in the red zone, it's difficult for us. They came out and got a couple of big plays, a couple of easy plays that set things up for them.

Giants Coach Jim Fassel
Q: Talk about your team's win.
A: That was a tough ballgame. I thought both teams were fighting hard. From our standpoint, I thought our team showed great composure. We talked about that a lot with them. When we started, the game was not going the way we initially wanted it to go. They scored before we did. We made some mistakes. We got a penalty when we could have gotten a big play. It wasn't coming out of the shoots the way I wanted it to, but we showed some composure.

Q: How did your quarterback, Danny Kanell, play?
A: I thought he managed the game. He did some nice things and made some nice throws. That one interception he threw, that was late in the ballgame. He should have parked that ball out of bounds. We really didn't have anybody open, and you can't hold it like that and try to force it in.

Q: Did the touchdown your team scoring right before halftime change the momentum of the game?
A: No question. You can look at stats in a million different directions. If you score first, your percentage is pretty good; if you score twice before the other team, the percentage is dramatic. Also, if you score just before halftime, your percentage of winning is pretty good. I thought it gave us a lift going in. Also, they got the late hit penalty going into the half. It didn't hurt them, but it gave us a lift going into halftime.

Giants Quarterback Danny Kanell
Q: Where does tonight's win put the Giants?
A: I think we got off on the right foot. I think it was important for us to have a good showing today, but at the same time on offense we had some chances to make plays. A couple times we had dropped balls, and we had some bad throws. We can improve. We can get better, but for a first game, it was what we wanted to accomplish.

Q: Did Coach Fassel try to take advantage of their mistakes?
A: Yeah, I think Coach Fassel likes to do that. He likes to call those kinds of plays. When we got the ball after a turnover, he likes to try to take a shot quick, and we were able to get that [touchdown pass to] Amani [Toomer]. The one we caught them on a busted coverage, when they brought the corner in and the safety, and they didn't have anybody to cover Ike [Hilliard]. That was a huge for us. In order to separate yourself from a good team to a great team, you've got to capitalize on the other team's mistakes, and we were able to do that today.