New York Giants defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson told reporters the reason why he was not at the team's practice last Friday was that his father passed away.
"First and foremost, just wanted to address why I missed last Friday. Unfortunately, I lost my hero and my dad. He passed away that morning and I had to leave," Wilson told reporters before Thursday's practice from the podium.
"My heart was heavy, but I am thankful for this organization, the coaches and especially the players and my family and friends who have been helping me deal with my loss of my dad and these players have been outstanding with the support that they have for me and my family. So, I just want to thank them and the organization for being there for me."
Wilson and the
Giants then headed to the West Coast and lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 28-6, on Monday night. The loss was marred by injuries to stars Jaxson Dart, Brian Burns, and Andrew Thomas, but it was a total disaster all around.
Wilson did not blame his personal crisis for the team's poor performance.
"There is no excuse for the way we played," Wilson added. "We didn't play fundamentally sound football and a team that is well coached as the Rams and the way they executed at a high level, if you don't play with the attention to detail, they hurt you. And that led to explosive plays that we gave up. And that's something that didn't happen in the first game, which gave us an opportunity to win. So, we are back to the drawing board this week. We got to work on ourselves first. And if we fix ourselves and the problems that we had in the game, we'll play a lot better going forward."
The Giants have just one sack in their first two games. Wilson says that needs to change.
"Yeah, obviously we want more sacks. The pressures are good, but we want to get the quarterback on the ground," he said. "Kudos to the Rams. They had a really good plan, a lot of chippers against our guys. And then (Los Angeles Rams quarterback) Matt Stafford got the ball out extremely quick. So, it'll start coming just like takeaways. Once you start getting one or two, they start to roll. And hopefully this week we can turn the table a little bit and get after their quarterback."
The Giants will face the Tennessee Titans, for whom Wilson served as defensive coordinator for the last two seasons, this Sunday at MetLife Stadium. They have not shown much of an offense in the first two games, ranking near the bottom in several key offensive categories.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: New York Giants' Dennard Wilson lost his father ahead of Rams game
