The New York Giants blew yet another lead this season, and this time it was to the Detroit Lions as they lost in overtime. This has been a problem all season, but many are wondering what happened late in the game when Dexter Lawrence was not on the field for defense. After the game, former Giants' legend Carl Banks had some choice words for the Giants after sitting Lawrence.
“What is a rotation. You got guys not as good as your best guys,” Banks said. “You don’t rotate when you need to close the game. All the other stuff is noise to me now. Missed tackles, par for the course. The fact that you don’t have your best players on the field when you need to close out a game says everything to me. The missed tackles happen every week; it's whatever. I cannot watch the best player on your football team watch the game because you decided a rotation was better.
“Then you come into overtime after 10 minutes of real time because you’re running commercials and all this other stuff, and your defense on the field, and he’s not there for the first series. And what happens? A big run. I don't get it.”
What's funny about this rant is that Banks and Lawrence have not seen eye-to-eye this season, and earlier in the year, the former player called out Lawrence for only having 0.5 sacks through the first eight games. Lawrence fired back at Banks, calling him delusional.
“Those are strong words,” Lawrence said, via ESPN's Jordan Raanan. “If that's how you feel? F— it… He's delusional.”
After the game, interim coach Mike Kafka was asked about Lawrence not playing in the game.
“So, Dex is battling for us. He had a little nick with his — he got a little nicked for us,” Kafka said. So, he was battling. He gave us everything he had for as many plays as we could possibly get him in there,” Kafka said. “But there was a management part of that to make sure we could maximize him in certain situations — third downs, things like that where his pass rush could be in effect. So, he wasn’t out there for that first down.”
