SEA' OF SILENCE
MetLife’s fall colors changing from blue to every shade of visiting team
The Giants will be playing the remainder of their home games at newly named Desolate Stadium, The Post has learned.
The new naming rights came after a heated selection process, with MetLifeless Stadium a close runner-up.
According to several thousand sources in blue and florescent green heard Sunday evening chanting “SEA-Hawks … SEAHawks,’’ the five remaining home Giants games will no longer end with a sea of blue-clad fans raining cheers down on the Giants. In the coming weeks, there will be invaders wearing the blue, white and gold of the Rams, the bright red of the Chiefs, that famous silver and blue of the Cowboys, the sickly green of the Eagles and bold bur- gundy of the Redskins.
Stuff happens when a season goes in the tank, but the downslide is usually not such a long, drawnout degradation. It is not even midseason, for goodness sakes, and five of the final nine games will devolve into the ultimate insult for the Giants franchise. Season-ticket holders will sell off in droves and the buyers will not be Giants loyalists. In the closing minutes of the latest example of offensive football foibles, Seahawks fans lined the lower bowl of MetLife Stadium, omnipresent in sight and sound. It is not as if East Rutherford is a hotbed for Seattle transplants. If you close your eyes and open your ears, you can already hear “Go Dallas Cowboys’’ and “Fly Eagles Fly’’ and “Hail to the Redskins’’ cascading down from all those grey seats.
“Obviously I would like them to be chanting the Giants but we got to give them something to chant about,’’ linebacker Devon Kennard said after the 24-7 loss to the Seahawks. “So, that’s our responsibility.’’
Of course the Giants heard the Seahawks’ serenade as they trudged off the field.
“It was tough … kinda hurt a little bit,’’ Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said.
“If we’re winning that game at the end of that game, that wouldn’t have been the case,’’ Kennard said. “So that’s on us.’’
The deadly combination of brutal record (1-6 — “You grit your teeth at that,’’ guard D.J. Fluker said), brutal product (you see this offensive operation?), glaring lack of firepower (Odell, come back, all is forgiven) and, by necessity, a
play-it-safe (and boring) approach will be a toxic mix. Throw in a downturn in the weather, the arrival of the holiday season and the growing enthusiasm and excitement about the Knicks (OK, scratch that one) and there will be rows and rows of empty seats and a grotesque amount of opposing team jerseys in the areas that are occupied.
“Well, we have a great homefield advantage and we need to work to take advantage of it,’’ Ben McAdoo said Monday.
Plenty more work is needed. This is the first time the Giants lost their first three home games in a non-strike season since 1980, which qualifies as the bad-old days. The paying customers this season have seen a dreadful 24-10 loss to the Lions, a 27-22 loss to the then-winless Chargers after the Giants blew a fourth-quarter lead and the latest impotent showing to the Seahawks. The Giants’ 177 total yards was their lowest total in more than four years and they did not run for a single first down.
There is also this: Every one of the five teams (Rams, Chiefs, Cowboys, Eagles, Redskins) coming in figures to be in the playoff chase. Perhaps the Giants can run a Spoiler Special and give away free Ben McAdoo laminated playcharts for every Giants upset victory. Or, to be on the safe side, the giveaway can be triggered for every Giants first down.
The next game for the Giants is also at home and, thankfully, the paying customers get a two-week respite from the misery. After he met with his team Tuesday, McAdoo gave his players the rest of the week off.
“We need to get away from it a little bit,’’ he said. “We need to clear our minds, get our bodies back and come back with a fresh outlook, as tough as that may be. We have a lot of football left to play, we had a lot of fight in us [against the Seahawks] and that needs to continue.’’
Wellington Mara, the Giants’ franchise patriarch, used to say the sound of silence was far worse than the sound of booing. One meant apathy, the other meant disgruntlement. Apathy gets people canned. When John Mara and Steve Tisch weigh the merits of keeping or jettisoning McAdoo and/or general manager Jerry Reese, the owners are going to have vivid memories of what is about to transpire at Desolate Stadium.