ALONG FOR THE PRIDE
Giants view final four weeks as opportunity
This is not exactly the matchup the Giants and Cowboys — or anyone else — were expecting before the season began.
Instead of a battle for NFC East supremacy, the Giants will be playing their first game under interim head coach Steve Spagnuolo in the midst of a disastrous season, and Dallas is on the verge of having its faint playoff hopes dashed.
But Jason PierrePaul, who said he will play Sunday despite an injured finger, insisted there still is plenty to play for.
“I just feel like the season didn’t go quite like everyone thought it was going to go, but at the end of the day, when you step out on the football field, you’re still a pro,” Pierre-Paul said Friday. “You’ve got to approach the game that way. There’s nothing lackadaisical over here. We’re gonna be ready to go this week. We’re excited. We’re ready to get after Dallas. That’s what it’s been all week.”
It will be the Giants’ first game at MetLife Stadium since an upset win over the Chiefs on Nov. 19. They followed that up with losses at Washington, on Thanksgiving, and at Oakland last Sunday, mixed in with the benching of Eli Manning for Geno Smith and the firing of coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese.
“It’s a division game, still,” PierrePaul said. “I think everybody’s excited, ready to play. We’re just not gonna lay down. We’ll come out here and do our best, [give] 100 percent.”
Things haven’t gone quite as poorly for the Cowboys, but they certainly have fallen short of expectations.
A win over the Redskins on Nov. 30 snapped a three-game losing streak, but at 6-6 and without suspended running back Ezekiel Elliott, Dallas has little chance to make the postseason.
If the Giants will take any pleasure in playing spoilers to their division rivals, they’re not letting on.
“We just want to win the game,” Sterling Shepard said. “That’s our main goal. We’re not focused on anything they’re doing over there.”
The Giants need victories — against anyone.
“A few wins before the end of the season would definitely help us going into next year,” Shepard said. “With the divisional games we have left to end the season [against the Eagles and Redskins], that would give us a little momentum going forward. So it would be good to finish strong.”
Spagnuolo said Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett is a “good friend.” Garrett, an assistant coach with the Giants before going to the Cowboys, took over as an interim head coach halfway through Dallas’ 2010 season, when he replaced Wade Phillips.
“I wish I could get on the phone and say, ‘What are your suggestions?’ ” Spagnuolo said. “But I didn’t think he’d give any good suggestions.” Spagnuolo likely had a point. Now he must find a way to get a disappointing team focused for the final four games of a lost season.