Giants’ preseason boasts put McAdoo in odd position

BEN McAdoo has a choice.

When the Giants open training camp on Thursday, their secondyear head coach can back up Landon Collins’ bold talk from Friday, when the All-Pro strong safety said Big Blue will “take over” the NFC East. Or McAdoo can tone down the rhetoric and dismiss it as too early to make predictions when all the work remains ahead.

So how will the recentlyturned-40 head coach proceed? Either way, it will be interesting to follow his handling of the team’s elevated expectations, coming off an 11-5 season with a playoff berth.

McAdoo, after all, had his players walking around June’s mandatory minicamp wearing team-issued warm-up shirts with the slogan “Make Gains 1%” written on the front above the New York skyline. The shirt’s message is exactly the opposite of making a big-picture, division-claiming prediction.

“Make Gains 1%” is a message that each player should try to get a little bit better every day, even if just one percent better. And if every player commits to that steady approach, the idea is that by season’s end, the cumulative improvement will lift the whole team where it wants to go.

So, in a way, Collins’ bravado is jumping the gun on McAdoo’s preferred methodical approach.

And yet, if McAdoo’s first Giants team in 2016 had any characteristic that made it unique, it was an unmistakable swagger. While the defense certainly led that attitude on the field, it all started with McAdoo’s first press conference to open training camp last July.

McAdoo reminded his players in the first team meeting: “Our goal is still to put the fifth trophy in the case.” He added that “those are just words right now” and stressed that “it’s time for us to go out there, put the work in and earn it.”

He didn’t run from the pressure of championship aspirations. He embraced it.

The players clearly appreciated their coach’s confidence in them and responded to it. McAdoo’s leadership gave way to personalities developing in the locker room to harness that message and rein in the excitement for week-to-week focus.

And it has paved the way for the 2017 Giants, augmented especially by the free-agent addition of wideout Brandon Marshall, to think — and talk — even bigger.

There is a huge difference between last year and this year, of course. The 2016 Giants had plenty of doubters and few expectations with a four-year playoff drought. The 2017 Giants, by contrast, are already asking for more pressure, by challenging the Cowboys outright.

How they handle it mentally, leading up to their Week 1 visit to Arlington, will set the foundation for this season and how this new Giants team manages new expectations and stakes.

McAdoo could choose to stamp out the hype in favor of more focus. But it’s a good bet he’ll back up Collins’ brash talk, if not in the media then behind the scenes, because he knows deep down he as head coach also expects nothing less.