BURIED OR ALIVE
When Giants leave Philly, they will be either ...
PHILADELPHIA — They’re planning a funeral on Sunday beginning at 1 p.m. under a broiling sun, which could cook cheesesteaks on the visiting benches of a 100-yard field long and wide enough to convert to a burial ground for New York Football Giants.
Bloodthirsty fans spewing venom and lusting for a bloodbath will try to make the Giants feel as though they are trapped inside a modern-day Roman Colosseum, with no escape, and no hope.
They wi l l sing “Fly, Eagles, Fly” and i mplore and exhort their flock of gladiators to leave Eli Manning in the same kind of crumpled heap that Lawrence Taylor used to leave their Ron Jaworski.
This is no time and no place for a dream and a season to die.
This is no time and no place to fall to 0-3, because 90 teams have started 0-3 since 1999, and 90 teams have failed to reach the playoffs, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
No, this is the time and the place for the New York Football Giants to show some pride and poise and toughness and get off the canvas and make a stand that would change the complexion of this pockmarked season.
This is the time and this is the place for the New York Football Giants to leave a hushed and shellshocked enemy stadium walking tall and very much alive. It’s up to them: RIP: Rise in Philly. “We’re not leaving Philadelphia without a win,” safety Andrew Adams told The Post, “so that’s our mentality.”
Giants against the world.
“When you got the world against you,” safety Landon Collins said, “it’s a good feeling to prove to them that we can do it.”
This is the time and the place for the Giants to start looking like the Super Bowl contender everyone expected them to be: an offense no longer clueless that complements a relentless, opportunistic defense that has been straining to hold the fort.
In other words: Wake up.
“It has to be balls-to-the-wall, gotta go get it, basically hair on fire, and it’s a must-win game,” Collins said.
They have been so embarrassingly bad without a healthy Odell Beckham Jr. that beating the Eagles would be seen by apoplectic Giants fans as a bigger upset than Rocky Balboa beating Apollo Creed.
In his quest to field a heavy-handed team, coach Ben McAdoo has considered just about everything except locking his players in a meat locker and instructing them to pound slabs of beef.
At least he hasn’t ditched the video clips. McAdoo showed his players a scene from “The Big Lebowski” in which Jeff Bridges, as “The Dude,” is thrown out of the back seat by the cab driver because he didn’t care for the song on the radio, “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” saying:
“Man, come on. I had a rough night and I hate the f---kin’ Eagles, man!” No peaceful easy feeling at the Linc. “We feel like our back’s against the wall,” Collins said, “and fight back. Fight back. That’s all we gotta do.”
If the Giants are who they still think they are, they can win this game.
McAdoo applauded his veteran leadership this week for not flinching, but better they not flinch Sunday afternoon.
If left tackle Ereck Flowers requires assistance from the National Guard, give it to him so Manning can get the ball to a healthier Beckham, inching his way back to 100 percent, early and often.
Whether he is the playcaller not, McAdoo — and Manning — desperately need the Beckham who can impose his will and fuel his team’s empty tank with gas.
Beckham wants to be the highest paid player in football? He can state his case here and now, as much as he can at whatever percent healthy he is. And he should state it early, because his team needs a jolt of energy and swagger in the worst way.
The Giants desperately need 11 angry men on defense, with or without Janoris “Jackrabbit” Jenkins, playing like a bunch of crazed dogs against Carson Wentz and at the very least keeping the game close enough for Beckham to try to win it.
“Once we break through this wall,” Adams said, “we’re gonna get the ball rolling.”
It only has looked like The Great Wall of China.
The Giants need to approach this one as make-or-break, now-or-never, do-ordie, all that for the Giants — because 0-3 in the division and 0-3 in the conference and 0-3 period is a veritable death wish.
The season isn’t over if the Giants refuse to let it be over. It’s up to them: RIP: Rise In Philly.