Giants Daily Blitz Blog

Daily Blitz: Blackburn: ‘We dug ourselves out’

Between Chase Blackburn and Michael Boley, Giants linebackers have half of the team’s eight interceptions through five games. In all of last season, the position had just two of the defense’s 20.

Blackburn had one of them (Mathias Kiwanuka had the other in 2011), and he grabbed his first of the season yesterday against the Browns. It was the fourth of his regular-season career and came when quarterback Brandon Weeden tried to squeeze one in from five yards out in the fourth quarter.

“It was just a Cover 2, they took the tight end vertical,” Blackburn said. “I had it pretty much the whole way, and the quarterback tried to fit one in there. I guess he was trying to probably throw it back shoulder, and I was able to make the play.”

Blackburn and the defense were thrown for a loop early on and found themselves down 14-0 five minutes into the game. But there was no panic on the sideline.

“You’ve got to move on,” Blackburn said. “That was as soon as we got on the sideline – it wasn’t like we were, ‘Oh, man, this, that and the other’ and blaming guys, things like that. It was kind of almost, ‘Let’s regroup ourselves.’”

He added: “We knew that our offense was going to come and put some points up. We just had to get settled in. The turnover on the first play of the game never helps things. We got backed up early, and from that point on, we just had to dig ourselves out and trust in our offense and trust in our defense. Our special teams made some good plays as well to save some big things.”

As for his coverage skills, it’s all about preparation for Blackburn. Having good hands helps, too.

“I’ve always been a linebacker, but I pride myself on having pretty good hands,” said Blackburn, who had a key interception in Super Bowl XLVI. “And I just continue to work on the Jugs [machine] and do different things and when the opportunity comes, hopefully I’ll make it.”

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