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 Kerry Collins gives the Ravens credit for taking him out of his game plan.
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Tiki Barber and the Giants came up short all night against the Ravens.
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Jason Sehorn says the Giants could not turn things around in the second half.
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| | Monday, January 29
Collins on his performance: 'I sucked'
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
TAMPA, Fla. -- Kerry Collins sat in the corner of the hushed Giants locker
room, his dirty baseball cap cocked backwards, his grass-stained jersey on
the floor and a somber look across his face.
|  | | Kerry Collins and the Giants offense were unable to score vs. the Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV. |
There, like he had all week long, Collins sat in front of a throng of
reporters, explaining what went wrong. And like in his Tuesday night Q&A
session with reporters, he hid very little, spilling the truth out no matter
how much it hurt.
"In the biggest game of the year, on the biggest stage there is, I
sucked," Collins said. "It's as simple as that."
Few would argue. In a game where going in everyone knew the Giants would
have to throw the ball in order to move the ball, Collins turned in by far
his worst performance as a Giant, if not his career. He tied a Super Bowl
record with four interceptions, completing just 15 of his 39 attempts for
112 yards.
"I've learned to separate my football career from my personal life and
just because I played poorly in the Super Bowl doesn't mean that I'm a bad
person," Collins said. "I still feel very good about what I'm doing and
where we're heading.
"My girlfriend, my parents, my family, they don't care about what
happened tonight and that's something I didn't always realize."
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Steve Young on Collins
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Former Super Bowl MVP Steve Young assesses the play of Giants' Kerry
Collins:
TAMPA, Fla. -- Coming off the NFC championship game, coach Jim Fassel said the Giants would
have to do to the Ravens what they did to the Vikings. They knew they
wouldn't be able to run the ball down the Ravens' throat or move the
football, so Fassel put the offense in Kerry Collins' hands.
Collins obviously had it against the Vikings and didn't have it Sunday
against the Ravens. Collins was unable to execute what was a very dynamic
game plan put together by offensive coordinator Sean Payton. Collins just
got off to a rough start; his first three passes could have been
intercepted, and he was eventually picked off four times.
Collins looked like he was pulling the trigger too often. He made some
passes against the Vikings that worked really well in some formations, but
didn't work here. He should have then pulled it down and maybe run with the
ball a bit more, or even throw it away. Collins stared down a few passes,
but he ended up throwing them anyway. It was rough, and nobody knows what he
did wrong more than Collins.
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In a jam-packed interview session Tuesday, Collins was very
forthcoming with reporters about his troubled past, which included alcoholism, racial comments and quitting on his teammates. He said after the
game that the attention on his off-field life had little bearing on Sunday night's performance.
"It was not a distraction at all," he said. "I shut it down when it
needed to be shut down. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I focused and
prepared exactly like I do for every other game. It had nothing to do with
it."
While Collins was grilled by reporters for his struggles against the
Ravens, Giants linebacker Mike Barrow interceded, shaking the quarterbacks
hand, patting him on the shoulder and telling him, "Forget about it. We'll
be back."
Though the Giants didn't win Sunday, that moment in itself explained how
far this team has come in one season -- and largely because of Collins. A year
ago, there was dissention between the two sides of the ball, as the defense
criticized the offense for its ineptitude.
When such was the case Sunday night, the team supported its fallen
quarterback.
"It's hard -- you feel for him," running back Tiki Barber said. "We worked
so hard and we came through so much adversity. And then, to come out here
and not play our best game is frustrating. We didn't give ourselves a chance
to win."
Numerous factors contributed to Collins' troubles. For one, the vicious
Ravens defense was able to get to him early and often, sacking
Collins four times, while pulverizing him into the ground countless others.
Though Collins refused to place the blame on anyone but himself, head
coach Jim Fassel concurred that the physicality of Baltimore's defense
rattled Collins, a six-year NFL veteran.
"It was a combination of us not protecting him, which I think made him a
little nervous, and then he started forcing things," Fassel said. "But he's
come a long way with us and I'm confident that we'll be back in this game
with him as our quarterback."
What was even more troubling was that the poor performance by Collins
directly correlated to the lethargic output of the offense. New York managed
just 149 total yards for the game, its worst results since it managed 107
yards in last year's season opener against the Buccaneers.
In no place was the lack of air attack more troubling than on third down,
with the Giants converting only 2-of-14 attempts.
"It's the most disappointing loss I've ever been involved with," Collins
said. "I'm disappointed in the way I played. It wasn't a lack of
preparation. It just started bad and didn't get any better."
A big part of that, Collins said, was poor decision-making. Numerous
times during the game he was mystified by the Ravens' various coverages. He said that his second interception, one in which Chris
McAlister stole the ball from Ike Hilliard, was an error in his judgment.
"The coverage I thought I was going to get after I took the snap from
center wasn't what we had," Collins said. "I saw Ike running free
and it was just a misread -- and a bad one -- on my part."
The interception was costly, coming with the Giants trailing 10-0 in
the second quarter and already in field goal range at the Baltimore 29-yard
line. It was one of only two times they reached Baltimore territory -- and the closest they came to scoring.
"It's Kerry's job to pull the trigger," Hilliard said, "And if he thought
we had a chance to make the play, then we had a chance."
After the game, Ravens and Giants alike pointed to Collins' fourth
interception of the game, one that was returned by Duane Starks for a
49-yard touchdown, as the backbreaker for New York.
On the play, a 5-yard out to Amani Toomer, Starks was already breaking
toward the end zone when Collins threw ball. The result was Starks catching it in stride and galloping untouched to the end zone.
Starks said after the game that a host of intense film sessions revealed
that Collins telegraphed many of his passes. In this case, he noticed a
slight pause between Collins' second and third step in his drop and knew it
was going to be an out pattern.
"I can say it now since the game's over, it's sort of a hop he gives, a
little hop when he's throwing the out," Starks said. "So as soon as he gave
me that hop, I went for it and he threw it right to the spot."
The dismal showing by Collins was even more disappointing as it came two
weeks after the greatest performance of his career, in the NFC championship game against the Minnesota Vikings. Though the defenses of Minnesota and
Baltimore are drastically different, the fact that Collins went from
completing 28-of-39 passes for 381 yards and an NFC-record five touchdowns
to his struggles against the Ravens was troubling.
But just like he did this week, when reporters grilled Collins about his
past troubles as an alcoholic, he refused to hide or make excuses. While
chomping on a cold cheeseburger in the locker room after the game and
talking live to a New York radio station, he even went as far as to
apologize to Giants fans for letting them down.
This from a man who was once accused of quitting on his teammates in
Carolina.
"I wish that I could have played better for them," he said. "But we'll be
back. We're going to take what we learned here tonight and I know, we ...
will ... be ... back."
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