On his back-and-forth battle with Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr.
“The guy took a shot at me, I don’t know how many times. If you take a shot at a guy’s head, I mean, come on now. That’s kinda going a little too far. Maybe he’s fed up with the winter time. I think he’s in a dark place.”
When asked if he felt Beckham should have been ejected
“The guy ran 15 yards down the field – a dead-on collision. The play was all the way to the left side. He came back and was hunting, and it was just, like, malicious in every way. I hope the league offices get a chance to review the film and see what they can do, because players like that don’t deserve to be in the game. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
On if he had gotten in Beckham’s head
“What’s his yardage for the day? I think they had to move him inside a good bit. The one big play he had, it was inside.”
When asked why he thought Beckham acted the way he did
“You’re going to be Michael Jackson and go around and dancing and playing and a lot of other stuff and not be a football player and not train the way you’re supposed to train. It goes to show. I hope I pulled that mask off. I pulled back the face of what that dude really is. You want to play football, play football. Don’t come out here and do all that extra stuff … You going to get out here, and you’re going to dance around and prance around like you’re a ballerina, that goes to show you. When you cut back layers, you see. Everybody saw that live on national TV. There’s nothing that I can show that he hasn’t already been exposed. The maturity level on him is just as a little kid. I think he needs to grow.”
When asked if things between him and Norman went too far
“It is unfortunate that we lost.”
On his three personal fouls
“You never want to hurt your team like that, and I have learned throughout my life, always, second man gets caught. It is just unfortunate.”
On dropping a sure touchdown
“It is almost not even real. Those are the fairy tale moments you look to … you can either seize the moment of let them go by and it was one that you thought was so easy and you let it go by and that is a moment you can never have back.”
When asked if he’s concerned about a suspension or fines
“Not really. You can go look at the film. I caught a slant and the man is diving across my face. Like I said, this is a tough game.”
When asked if Beckham’s reputation kept him in the game
“You’re asking the questions; you know the answers.”
When asked what he thought may have gotten into Beckham
“He may have something in his blood. I don’t know. Maybe it’s female-related, I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you that. But, I mean, that would be the only thing I could think of.”
On Beckham’s emotions
“You can see he wears it on his sleeve, he’s going to show. I really liked the battle with him and Josh, it was like Floyd and Pacquiao. It was a great matchup.”
When asked if he considered taking Norman out of the game
“If they pulled Odell out, I would have pulled Josh out. But I wouldn’t have pulled Josh out. Josh has got a lot to learn to play through these things. He’s such a talented young man. He’s very emotional and he’s got to learn to maintain his composure and play through those types of situations.”
On escaping with a win after blowing a 28-point lead
“Very disappointed in ourselves. We had an opportunity to close a team out and we didn’t do it. Why? We didn’t keep our focus and maintain our composure.”
On Beckham struggling to deal with his emotions
“We had discussed prior to the game, going in, what the expectation would be, and he thought that that was all behind him. But he did lose his composure.”
On why he didn’t pull Beckham out
“I wanted him to play the game. He had to learn. He’s gotta learn at some point how to deal with some things on the field.”
When asked if the Giants’ handful of close losses this year are stomach-punchers
“Sometimes lower.”
On Beckham vs. Norman
“You got a field full of alpha males, they’re not going to be playing ‘Patty cake, Patty cake’ out there.”
On escaping with a win
“It feels weird in the locker room now because we were so high in the third quarter and then we found ourselves back in a battle.”
When asked if he had fun leading the Panthers on another game-winning drive
“It’s not fun. It’s fun to watch, I’m pretty sure, but it’s not fun. I got a couple of gray hairs.”
On his fourth-quarter interception
“I was throwing it away. The ball got tipped a little bit out of the hand. My elbow got hit so it just fluttered up there and they got a cheap one.”
On the strange feeling postgame
“It’s the most disappointed 14-0 locker room I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“When you’re up 35-7 in the second half – those games need to be over … When you have a good team, playing at home, fighting for their lives. you can’t give them life. And we gave them life … If we didn’t pull that out, that would have been pretty devastating.”