Shurmur feels ‘urgency to win a football game’
The Giants have lost five straight ugly games. Young promising players are not just making mistakes but repeating them. They are about to play a game against the equally (or possibly even more) woeful Jets that could define the direction of the franchise for the immediate future.
And all eyes are on one person to fix it.
“I’m built for this,” head coach Pat Shurmur said on Thursday in response to questions about his job security, how he has been dealing with all of the negative results his team has produced and all of the negative vibes that seem to surround him and the squad.
But for the football coach on the secondhottest seat in New York who might be changing chairs with his counterpart if the Giants lose on Sunday the focus isn’t about big picture decisions or pivotal points in the franchise’s history. For Shurmur, this is about Sunday.
“I feel the urgency to win a football game, period,” he said. “That’s it.”
Sunday’s game may be the tipping point that determines which direction Shurmur’s tenure goes. If they can beat the Jets, it will take at least some of the heat off of him and the team as they head into a bye week. They can rethough. Coowner John Mara said in the summer that he would not judge the season based on wins or losses, but rather a sense that the Giants are heading in the right direction.
Shurmur on Thursday seemed to make his case for that.
“I know that we are on the right path and I know that we are just a few plays from getting over the top,” he said. “When the players see that then we can build on that.”
Three of the last five losses have come by 18 points or more, which does not reflect the proximity to success that Shurmur indicates. But in the last four games, the Giants have gone into the fourth quarter within a touchdown of the lead.
“We created a fumble and got ahead in this past game, we were ahead through most of the first half,” Shurmur said of the loss to the Cowboys. “We battled back, we kept it to within one score. We were right there.”
Until they weren’t. “We fell victim to some damaging plays that then create a situation where you lose the game,” he said of the eventual 3718 final score. “You change those isolated situations and things can be different. That’s what I see.”
Perhaps. But what people see on Sunday may be the image that lasts.