If not now, when?
HERE IS A REAL good question for the Giants, as they prepare to open against the Cowboys on Sunday night:
If they aren’t built to win now, then when, exactly?
The Giants went out and got reinforcements on defense last season, and made it back to the playoffs as a wild card, and then went to Green Bay and got waxed by the Packers. And there was a bit of football karma in that one, you know, none of it good for the Giants. The last time the Giants won a Super Bowl, they went into Green Bay against the 15-1 Packers and there was a Hail Mary, jump-ball touchdown pass right before the half, Eli to Hakeem Nicks, and the game was never the same. This time Aaron Rodgers did it to them, a touchdown pass to Randall Cobb on the last play of the first half of a game that ended 38-13 for the Packers.
Eli’s Giants have won two Super Bowls, you bet. The rest of the time, his whole career, they have either missed the playoffs or lost the first playoff game they played. It is the most remarkable postseason resume any big New York athlete has ever had.
Now the Giants start another season with Odell Beckham, Jr., a force of nature and streak of light. They bring in Brandon Marshall, the kind of big receiver that Eli has always loved — hello, Plax — and thus look as loaded at wide receiver as ever. They have developed a total star, Landon Collins, on defense, a kid who frequently looked like the Defensive Player of the Year last year. They say they are going to show more variety on offense this season, and even talk about actually having fullbacks who will be more than hood ornaments.
So they should absolutely be set up to make a run at the Cowboys in the NFC East, even though that gets harder if Ezekiel Elliott, who found a friendly Texas judge as he continues to fight his six-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy, gets to play the whole season.
But will the Giants, the Giants of Eli and Odell and Collins and Ben McAdoo, the Giants built by general manager Jerry Reese, make a run this season, and not just at the Cowboys? If not now with these guys, when? This is Eli’s 14th season. He starts his 200th straight game on Sunday night against the Cowboys. He has been a reliable, classy, accountable, durable star. You know the two Super Bowl runs and the two Super Bowl wins against the Patriots will give him amazing capital with his fans, forever, as tough as Giants fans are on their quarterbacks. When the Giants beat the 18-0 Patriots in Glendale, Ariz. John Mara called it the greatest victory in the history of the franchise. It might have been the greatest victory, considering the opponent, any New York team has ever had. Then four years later the Giants did it again.
They have made the playoffs one time since then. Lost the way they did to the Packers. So it was still Super Bowlor-bust for them. So if they do finally put some points on the board this January, it will be the first time they have done that in six years. Of course the team the Giants play on Sunday night, the Cowboys, hasn’t won a Super Bowl in 20 years. They thought they might be on their way back to the big game last year, and then the Packers clipped them after they clipped the Giants. Just in the time that Eli has been quarterback for the Giants, the Cowboys have made the playoffs five times. All they have to show for that are wild card wins against the Lions and Eagles. There are no better fans here, or anywhere, than Giants fans. They don’t just think of their team as a family business for the Mara family and the Tisch family. They think of it as their own family business. Are remarkably loyal. And getting remarkably impatient waiting for their team to be a contender again, and that means a contender to make it back to the first Sunday in February.
Guess what? The Giants should win the NFC East this season, whether the Cowboys lose Elliott for six games or not. The Giants are supposed to do something in January, and all the way into February. They went from an old coach to a young coach. The general manager has given his fans Beckham and Collins and been allowed to spend all the money in the world on free agents.
But seriously: If he hasn’t built a team to win this year, with a 36-year-old quarterback, which year is he pointing toward?
There has been enough time since the last Super Bowl against the Patriots to build another Super Bowl team. The Giants still have Eli, they have one of the great playmakers in the sport in Odell. We hear all the time about how many other weapons they have on offense. After all the work done on the defense and all the money spent, Jerry Reese ought to have been able to build another championship defense, too.
Giants fans would never trade away those two victories over the Patriots. Are you kidding? Those two games, one in Glendale and the other in Indianapolis, made the Giants one of the elite teams of the sport again. They will eventually put Tom Coughlin and Eli into the Hall of Fame. But Giants fans stopped celebrating them a long time ago. Eli isn’t getting any younger. Giants fans want another parade. The route is supposed to start on Sunday night in Texas.
In all ways with these Giants, it’s about time.