Identity crisis
Giants better than their record and need to start acting like it
THE GIANTS are too good to be so bad.
There is an overarching reason why every NFL team since 1999 that started a season with three consecutive losses failed to make the playoffs, and that reason has nothing to do with probability. It has to do with ability. Teams sitting at 0-3 usually are lousy teams. Lousy teams and the playoffs are almost always mutually exclusive.
The Giants are not a lousy team. They are, however, playing the role of a lousy team, and if they do not end the madness this weekend, they will become the football embodiment of one of Forrest Gump’s favorite credos: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Lousy is as lousy does. There is nothing perfect about these Giants, but there is no way their record should be completely imperfect. Intermingled in the statistical data pointing to losing is the unseen reality the Giants must face: They entered this season too full of themselves.
One player’s take is not a team-wide referendum, but here is what cornerback Janoris Jenkins had to say about what life is like at 0-3:
“I think everybody’s got a sense of urgency around here now,” Jenkins said. “I think we woke up, just ready and excited to see and go on Sunday.” Woke up? “I think so,” Jenkins said. “You see more energy, everybody knows what’s at stake, everybody’s moving around and just trying to find a way.”
If this is true, the honesty is appreciated, but the sentiment is unacceptable. Any wake-up call should have rung out after the 19-3 season-opening loss to the Cowboys. The offense was pathetic and the defense, despite only allowing one touchdown, gave up 129 rushing yards, a harbinger of things to come. At 0-1, the Giants should have been fully awakened.
“It’s not about how long it took, it’s about what’s going on now,” Jenkins said. “We understand what type of situation we put ourselves in and now we got to come out and go strong.”
Beating the Buccaneers on Sunday in Tampa applies the tourniquet on a season that will go down as one of the most wasteful in franchise history if the Giants cannot sprinkle some promise into the start of October.
At least the wasteful Mets had the excuse of crippling injuries. The Giants have been relatively healthy. Given what some teams have had to endure, Odell Beckham Jr.’s ankle, B.J. Goodson’s shin and the ankles of Janoris Jenkins and Bobby Hart were inconve- niences, certainly not impossible-to-overcome hurdles.
That the Giants are down in the dregs of NFL society, sharing winless company with the Browns, 49ers, Bengals and Chargers almost is unfathomable, considering the talent on their roster. Their defense should be a top-10 unit and one of the best run-stopping operations in the league — not the worst. Their offense, while lacking up front and probably devoid of a legitimate starting-caliber running back, should not have gone the first 11 quarters of the season scoring 13 points.
The Giants have rejected the characterization they are desperate, even though they are.
“I don’t know if the word is desperate,” Justin Pugh said. “It’s a big game for us. Obviously 0-3 is not where we want to be.”
Odell Beckham Jr: “I don’t know what desperate means. I’ve never been desperate in my life. I know that we’re not desperate, but we do need a win, period. It’s time now.”
Landon Collins also pretended he did not even know the meaning of the word. “Desperation … as in ...?” he asked. “We look at it as we have an opportunity to make history.”
They would make team history, as the Giants never have started a season 0-3 and made it into the playoffs. Out of 168 teams since 1980 starting 0-3, five of them (2.9 percent) made it to the postseason, most recently (although not really recently at all) the 1998 Bills.
The playoffs can wait. The Giants, despite their denials, are desperate to win one game. They do not have to admit this, but they do have to play like it.