Giants OLB Abdul Carter Offers Two-word Response Regarding Latest Benching

The best that New York Giants outside linebacker Abdul Carter, who earned his second benching in three weeks, could give to the question of “Why?” was a shrug and a rather lackadaisical response.

“Sh– happens,” Carter told reporters gathered at his locker just minutes after the Giants were embarrassed on national television by the New England Patriots, 33-15.

Carter reportedly ran afoul of team rules for the second time in three weeks, drawing the longer penalty this time from interim head coach Mike Kafka, who, after the game, said the move to bench Carter for a second time over the last three weeks was “my decision.”

Meanwhile, with Carter on the bench, the Giants spotted the Patriots 17 points in the first quarter, not that Carter himself would have stopped that bleeding, but still, a disappointing development from a rookie for whom there were such high hopes.

“I let my team down today,” he said. “First two drives, I was out; they scored 17 points. I take responsibility for that. I gotta be out there. I gotta do better.”

Carter said the same thing two weeks ago when he was benched for the opening series after it emerged that he missed a walkthrough practice due to a scheduling mix-up. At the time, the former Penn State star claimed that such an infraction wouldn’t happen again, and he took full responsibility for his indiscretion.

Yet two weeks later, there was another indiscretion, which calls into question whether Carter has actually learned his lesson and whether he has formed a bad habit of running on his own schedule that Kafka is now trying to address through discipline.

Carter insisted that his actions have nothing to do with Kafka, reiterating that he needed to be better. He also expressed remorse that he (again) let his teammates down.

“They know how I feel,” Carter said, revealing that he learned of his benching earlier in the week. “They know where I stand. As I said, I let them down today.”

Carter admitted that his acclimation to the NFL has been a little more challenging than he perhaps anticipated, but refused to use that as an excuse.

“Like I said, I gotta be better. I gotta take pride in what I do, be where I have to be. Simple as that.

“I gotta keep moving on, keep persevering. I've been through worse things, so like I said, I'll be all right.”

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