LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
McAdoo fires up his team for physical encounter with Pack
Earlier this week Giants coach Ben McAdoo showed his players scenes from the classic film “Fight Club’’ to get them pumped for Sunday’s playoff showdown at Green Bay. On Thursday, Odell Beckham Jr. showed he’s in the spirit, parading around the locker room in a wrestling mask.
The video clip Ben McAdoo showed his Giants on Wednesday as his first playoff game as head coach nears speaks volumes about how he views his team and what he believes it will take to upset Aaron Rodgers and the Packers in Green Bay on The Road to Houston.
This is Fight Club he is taking with him to Lambeau Field, a club that warms to a good fight and finds a way to win it most of the time, even if it has to get off the canvas.
And so there on the screen was Brad Pitt, introducing all the rules of the 1999 movie “Fight Club,” The Post has learned:
“Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: If someone yells ‘stop,’ goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: Only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: One fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule: Fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.”
The playoffs are not for the faint of heart. The speed of the game is faster. No one wants to go home. Not this close to the Lombardi Trophy.
Asked about the Fight Club presentation, Justin Pugh told The Post: “It’s gonna be a fight. We’re gonna go in there, and it’s our first time in the playoffs, almost like our first time at Fight Club, and the last rule is if it is your first time at Fight Club, you gotta fight. And we know we’re going up there and we gotta fight, and it’s gonna be a fight when we go to Green Bay, and it’s gonna be physical and it’s gonna be … a good game.”
Odell Beckham Jr. stood on a stool Thursday wearing the kind of red mask that professional wrestler Rey Mysterio normally wears and interrupted a Victor Cruz media session. Cruz looked up and laughed as Beckham yelled out, “Top rope!” and leapt down from the stool with a flying elbow move. Cruz laughed and called him “Odell Mysterio.”
It often isn’t the team with more skill that prevails. It often is the team with more will. To wit: the 1990 Giants went into Candlestick Park and upset Joe Montana 15-13 in the NFC Championship game. Ask Brett Favre and Tom Brady about the 2007 Giants. Ask Rodgers and then49ers coach Jim Harbaugh and Brady about the 2011 Giants.
Asked what he got out of the “Fight Club” clip, Cruz laughed and told The Post: “It’s gonna be a fight. I think he was preparing us to go into a fight and to understand that it’s not gonna be an easy game. It’s not gonna be an easy month if we’re fortunate enough to continue playing, and we gotta be prepared for what’s to come.”
What’s to come requires the Giant to be Road Warriors in order to reach Super Bowl LI.
“You’re gonna be in a fight this weekend, be in the fight,” Jay Bromley told The Post. “Be there mentally, physically, and every which way possible.”
Rashad Jennings: “The first thing we do is the first thing we do, and that’s make sure we take care of what we need to take care of in-house. That’s kinda what I took of it is stay inside of the moment, inside of the Fight Club, don’t worry about people talk[ing] about playoffs … just focus on the work.”
Olivier Vernon: “When we’re out there on that field, it’s all us.”