Possible Giant change
what?’ I live my life day by day. Whatever happens, happens.”
Manning’s name has also circulated in some trade rumors, though that would be extremely unlikely due to his no-trade clause.
Manning, who is under contract through 2019 and owed $22 million over the next two seasons, was unavailable to the media for comment on Monday but is scheduled speak Wednesday, after the GETTY trade deadline passes.
Linebacker Jonathan Casillas has also been rumored as a potential fit for the Patriots, but said he would not want to play anywhere else.
“I would fight here no matter what the record is,” he said. “...Hopefully, those guys hear me say this and they take that into consideration into the next 24 hours, but I want to be here. I want to finish my career as a Giant.”
JERRY Reese’s theory that the Giants “bought into the hype,” specifically on a defense that wasn’t as “hungry,” didn’t hold up Monday when players got a chance to respond after a Week 8 bye. Landon Collins, a 2016 first-team All-Pro selection, said on the contrary that before this season started, fellow first-team All-Pro Damon Harrison and the Giants defense gathered and called each other out to guard specifically against resting on last year’s achievements.
“No. In this locker room, on the defensive side, we have a lot of real talk,” Collins said at his locker. “The biggest thing for us, we — Snacks did it — he called a lot of us out (before the season) and just told us about ourselves. And one thing he told about me is he said he thinks I’m gonna rely on what I did last year. And that’s one thing I took to heart.
“Because I’m like, ‘I’m not that kind of player that’s gonna rely on what I did last year,’” Collins continued. “I know I’m gonna have a lot of eyes on me … but at the same time I’m not gonna let what I did last year (be good enough because) that’s just me. I’m gonna try to show as much as I can. So on the defensive side as a whole, we (took) into consideration that we’ve still got a point to prove and to uphold why we were in the top-10, top-5 position that we were.”
Now that’s not to say the Giants players weren’t aware of the hype or aren’t being accountable.
Harrison tweeted last week when Reese publicly accepted blame for this 1-6 start: “Nah, the men who suit up like myself on Sunday(s) are the reason. He doesn’t tackle, block, throw or catch TD’s, or kick. This is on players.”
Justin Pugh, the team’s top offensive lineman, admitted Monday to being “guilty” of buying into some hype for saying in the preseason that “this was the best team we’ve had on paper.”
Coach Ben McAdoo, given his first opportunity to respond to Reese’s comments, admitted: “Were we a hungry enough football team? You can make a case that we weren’t. But that’s just part of it. It’s not just one thing.”
And yet, blaming the players for a lack of urgency just doesn’t check out.
For one, Odell Beckham Jr., the Giants’ best player, seemed as motivated as ever entering the season. His preseason injury in Cleveland basically stopped him before he got started, but the point is, the team’s best player was not assuming anything. He was clearly hungry and his hunger seemed contagious.
“Guys around the locker room, I felt guys were hungry and ready to go,” Sterling Shepard said Monday.
Secondly, while middle linebacker B.J. Goodson on Monday didn’t want to challenge Reese’s observation, Goodson’s truth about how he’s been thinking and preparing was much different than the GM alleged.
“I’m not sure what everybody else believes,” Goodson said. “I still feel the same way I felt in training camp as far as coming to work every day and winning the day. But to each his own, every man has his opinion. If that’s what (Reese) sees from his perspective, that’s what he sees. I can’t tell a man what he sees and what he doesn’t. (But) I’m trying to win the day, get better, win a game and stack that. That’s my thought process.”
The defense has been party to this collapse, no doubt about it. Between Weeks 3 and 5, it surrendered five fourth-quarter leads in three games and a game-winning drive with the game tied in Philadelphia. And no, it wasn’t able to dominate Seattle for a full four quarters in Week 7 the way it did Denver in Week 6.
But here’s the reality: This same defense carried a bad 2016 Giants offense to 11 wins last season, many of them nail-biters. And while it was an unsustainable recipe for success, Reese made minimal improvements to the offense. The result is the Giants opened the 2017 season still unable to score points on offense, and the result was a domino effect of bad momentum and losses piling up.
The allegation that the Giants are losing because they “bought into the hype” is empty. The truth is the Giants offense scored three points in Week 1 in Dallas and 10 points in Week 2 against Detroit. The defense was on its way to shutting out the LIons in the second half until Reese’s prized offseason signing, Brandon Marshall, dropped a deep ball from Eli Manning, and a Lions punt return TD ended the game.
The Giants offense didn’t start scoring until the fourth quarter of Week 3 in Philadelphia, after McAdoo had made an emergency adjustment to a no-huddle, quick-throw offense to protect the poor offensive tackles Reese did not replace in the offseason and compensate for an impotent running game.
The defense had a horrible fourth quarter that day, surrendering two leads and a gamewinning drive, but consider: Was a 14-0 deficit after three quarters on the defense? It was inexcusable to let Carson Wentz complete a 19-yard pass to Alshon Jeffrey at the sideline to set up Jake Elliott’s 61-yard game-winning kick, but was it hunger that let the defense down or Brad Wing’s 28-yard punt that made it possible?
In Week 4 in Tampa even, Buccaneers defensive backs were telling Beckham how predictable the Giants’ offense was. And when Beckham got hurt in Week 5 against the Chargers, MetLife Stadium wasn’t big enough to contain the amount of negative energy emanating from that field as the Giants fell to 0-5 and defensive backs started griping, followed by Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie’s suspension, and so on. h, and that Week 6 win in Denver? While Mike Sullivan made a difference by taking over play-calling and sticking to the run, Janoris Jenkins and the defense won that game by overpowering a poor QB in the Broncos’ Trevor Siemian. And that was only to see the offense gain a measly 177 net yards and score once in a 24-7 Week 7 thumping by Seattle.
So did the Giants players, specifically the defense, buy into the hype and enter 2017 with less hunger?
Not really. The evidence doesn’t point to a lack of desire or urgency. The evidence points to poor performance, starting with an offense that put so much weight on the defense’s shoulders that it eventually cracked. And Reese is responsible for that.
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