Thanksgiving game gives G-Men chance to change the narrative
It may sound silly with a 2-8 football team, but Thanksgiving night has the potential to change this Giants season and the future of the franchise.
No, the playoffs are still a lost cause and New York still has too many personnel issues to win many more games. But Sunday’s 12-9 upset of the Kansas City Chiefs offered evidence that the Giants still have some fight in them with head coach Ben McAdoo’s job at stake.
After winning only one game in the first 10 weeks of the season, the Giants have a chance to win two games in five days when they visit the Washington Redskins (4-6) at FedExField in primetime Thursday. But riding momentum in a short week is a double-edged sword.
“It’s tough for the guys to get ready to play,” McAdoo said Monday on a conference call. “The players, you know, they poured their hearts out in the overtime game (Sunday). So it’s a quick turnaround for the players. That’s always tough on them, but we don’t make the schedule. We just got to play it, so we’ll be ready to go.”
The last time the Giants shocked outside observers was in Week 6 when they went to Denver and beat the Broncos at 0-5, just seven days after losing Odell Beckham Jr. and Brandon Marshall to seasonending injuries. But reality set in the following Sunday with a 24-7 home loss to the Seattle Seahawks in which the decimated Giants offense returned to dysfunction.
A bye week offered little respite as the Los Angeles Rams dropped 51 points at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 5 — the most back Orleans Darkwa said. “So overall, the vibe, everybody is pretty positive. We’re not complacent. At the end of the day, it’s just one win. We want to make sure we can stack these wins together and make the best situation possible for this team.”
Being competitive with the chips down and pulling out a few more wins could be enough for McAdoo to convince ownership that he deserves a third season in the Meadowlands. That would also, naturally, hurt the Giants’ draft position in 2018.
General manager Jerry Reese reportedly attended Saturday’s UCLA vs. USC game in Los Angeles featuring top quarterback prospects Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen. The irony of that, though, is that Reese’s own tenure might be terminated once the Giants miss the playoffs for the fifth time in six years.
None of that matters right now to these Giants with six games left before the offseason. Future Hall of Fame quarterback Eli Manning addressed the team with a speech before the Chiefs game, then broke down the huddle in the locker room after the win with an eye toward building momentum on Thanksgiving.
“Eli is the heartbeat of our team,” Darkwa said. “He gave a fiery speech that got everybody riled up and to have a guy like that, that has been through so much, that’s got those two Super Bowl rings, we follow him. We follow his footsteps in everything ... because at the end of the day, he’s been there, he’s done that as far as reaching the promised land and getting those two Super Bowl rings. Everybody is trying to push for that goal.”