Antrel Rolle isn't bothered by Saturday's 24-10 loss to the Ravens. According to the safety, the Giants are just going to "flip the switch on when the regular season comes."
Rich Seubert is bothered by the loss. The team looked sluggish, executed poorly and that's a concern because "it's not like a light switch where you can turn it on and turn it off."
Once the Giants fix their defense and find five healthy offensive linemen, they might want to think about having an electrician come in to address the team. Their knowledge of how switches relate to football teams could really use some work. Not that you need two different theories on switches or two different players to find two wildly divergent views on the state of the Giants.
Speaking first for the take it easy camp is linebacker Keith Bulluck: "It's still August and I don't think that in August you don't really get too concerned about things. You just figure out and try to pinpoint the problems."
And, on rebuttal, linebacker Keith Bulluck: "You need to work out all the kinks that you have now. Go full-speed every opportunity you get to practice and hone your craft. So if guys are holding back, it’s going to make for a tough start of the season for them and possibly for our team."
While you'd never expect to have an entire team of football players saying exactly the same thing about the state of the team, it's a bit jarring to hear such wildly divergent views of where things stand so close to the start of the season. There's even dissonance coming from Tom Coughlin, who writes off struggles as the result of a game plan designed to test reserve players while simultaneously saying he's going to play his starters on Thursday because he's unhappy with how the team performed against the Ravens.
Since Michael Strahan left the team following the Super Bowl win, Coughlin's voice has been the only one that's represented the entire team and all indications are that he prefers to keep things that way. Perhaps that needs to change now that even he doesn't seem to know whether the team is reeling or doing just fine.
U.S. & World
That would be a straight acknowledgement that something is wrong, however, and that kind of clarity seems beyond the Giants at this point in time.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
