Bobby Okereke pushes back on criticism of his Giants tackling

ARLINGTON, Texas — The numbers are there, and Bobby Okereke is not going to apologize for them. 

Tucked deep inside the Giants’ 21-6 season-opening loss to the Commanders was Okereke amassing 16 total tackles in the game — seven solo and nine assisted. That is a ton of tackles, but the overall results on defense were uninspiring, as the Giants allowed 220 rushing yards.

As a result, Okereke’s performance was criticized on some social media platforms, focusing on where the tackles were made — too far down the field. 

Okereke did not see it that way. 

“When you’re flying around making tackles, you’re in the game and you’re tackling the ball,” Okereke told The Post. “I think the quality tackle is whether you make it or miss it, whether you make the tackle at 10 yards or you make it at 5 or you make the tackle at the line of scrimmage, as long as you are decisive in your pursuit then the tackle opportunity is just wherever it presents itself. 

“If you’re playing hesitant, not getting downhill, then if you’re just making it at 5, then OK, that’s a quality of tackle play. But if a play breaks through and you make it at 5 or make it 10 yards, I wouldn’t necessarily fault the player for that tackle. The player is just making that tackle where it presents itself.” 

Okereke did reprimand himself for a missed tackle of running back Austin Ekeler in the fourth quarter, which he said was a byproduct of having “bad eyes” by sneaking a peak at quarterback Jayden Daniels, which led to a bad angle taken on Ekeler. 

“That was a play that kind of bit me in the ass and one I definitely want back,” Okereke said. He also bemoaned not having a single tackle for loss. 

This was a significant barrier for Okereke to cross, as it was his first game coming off a back injury that cost him the final five games of the 2024 season. Not winning was “the most important thing,” he said, but coming out of the game healthy allowed him to look ahead to the Week 2 matchup with the Cowboys. 

“For me, I feel like I was flying around,” Okereke said. “Obviously when a player has 16 tackles they’re moving out there, they’re in the flow of the game, for sure. From that standpoint I feel like I was productive. It was a decent start.” 

DE Chauncey Golston spent his first four NFL seasons with the Cowboys before signing a three-year, $18 million contract with the Giants. He insists he has no inside information to provide to his new team about his former team. 

“I don’t really have anything like, ‘Oh, this is going to be our token to winning,’ ” Golston said. “At the end of the day, we got to line up, play hard and do our job.”

First-year Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer was Seahawks offensive coordinator from 2018-20, calling plays for Russell Wilson. 

“One of the greatest deep-ball throwers I’ve ever been around,” Schottenheimer said. “The ability to extend plays when I was with him was a great quality.”