Darkwa gets Giants off to running start
If you’re heading into free agency as a running back, there’s no better way to end a season than with a 100-yardplus game — especially with a new boss on hand. And if you’re in the final game of the season, there’s no better way to start it off than with a long touchdown run. Giants running back Orleans Darkwa did both Sunday. “We’ll see what happens. I love the fans here. Love the players. I’ve been here for a while and it’s definitely been fun, but I’m looking forward to the future and I’m not going to sit here and say I’m going to be back,” Darkwa said after the Giants closed out the 2017 Season from Hell with an 18-10 victory over Washington at frigid MetLife Stadium. “I don’t know what the future holds.” After Dave Gettleman was introduced Friday as the Giants’ new general manager, Darkwa wasted little time displaying his skills. “This is really his first impression of us as a team. First impression of us as players and collectively as a team,” Darkwa said. “So, it’s important to always go out there and play with that fire and make a good impression.” Darkwa’s second 100-yard game this season produced 154 yards on 20 carries, the biggest carry being his first. After Eli Manning threw an incompletion on the game’s first play from scrimmage, Darkwa bolted 75 yards to score just 17 seconds into the game. It was the Giants’ longest run from scrimmage since Nov. 16, 2008, when Ahmad Bradshaw ran for 77 yards against the Ravens.
“Couldn’t ask for a better start,” Darkwa said.
“That first play was huge for us,” center Brett Jones said. “That can happen any time and it was so cool it happened at the beginning of the game. It just really set the tone for us and got us off on the right foot.”
Too often this season, the 3-13 Giants played with two left feet. So this felt special — even if there was little actual feeling in the extremities.
“Amazing,” was Darkwa’s description of the run. “Especially it’s been a while for this team and obviously the struggles that we’ve had this year. It feels great to end the year with a win. Obvi- ously there’s a lot of changes this way, but I couldn’t be more happy for the players and the coaches. They definitely battled their tails off this season. There’s no quitters on this team and it showed today.”
The game capped off a tumultuous week for the Giants in a season when tumultuous weeks were common. A GM was named, an exec was canned, a starter was waived, a player was called a cancer by a teammate and then suspended. It was, you know, typical Giants 2017.
“We knew that changes were coming,” Darkwa said. “At the end of the day, we had a football game to play and you all saw today, we were completely focused on the game, on the game plan and it showed. We were able to get a win.”