The last time the Giants participated in the postseason, Odell Beckham Jr. punched a post-boat trip hole in a wall in the bowels of Lambeau Field.
Beckham wore out his welcome and never became legendary, and neither did Ben McAdoo, the head coach at the time. Now, here we are, five years and two new head coaches and one new general manager and one new franchise quarterback and one pandemic later, and as training camp 2021 begins, it is time for the New York Football Giants to remember who and what they are expected to be around here.
The Giants will be celebrating and honoring their Super Bowl 46 team because it is the 10-year anniversary.
A decade that feels like an eternity in and around 1925 Giants Drive. The Giants haven’t won a playoff game since they upset Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and the Patriots for the second time in Super Bowl 46.
So the drought has reached nine seasons and counting. John Mara has attempted to bury in the recesses of his Big Blue mind the wilderness years between the Giants losing the 1963 NFL Championship game to their next playoff win on Dec. 27, 1981 in Philadelphia.
The 2011 champion Giants were NFC East champions. Since then, the Cowboys have won the division three times, the Eagles have won it three times and the Washington Football Team has won it three times.
Since then, Giants fans have witnessed: the end of the Tom Coughlin Era … McAdoo ending Eli Manning’s Ripken-esque streak by starting Geno Smith … the Giants not signing Beckham to a $90 million deal to trade him and then trading him less than a year later … Pat Shurmur (9-23) … Deandre Baker’s legal fiasco … Saquon Barkley wrecking his knee in Week 2 of 2020.
Of course, no one fears the Giants, and after four consecutive years out of the playoffs, after 6-10 in 2020, no one should.
It is time for the New York Football Giants to be feared again.
Joe Judge, because of the pandemic, has never won a game in front of Giants fans. Daniel Jones has won one, way back on Sept. 29, 2019 when he beat Dwayne Haskins and the Washington Football Team 24-3.
As long as the Delta variant cooperates, MetLife Stadium will be filled this season with Giants fans. Judge gave them a likeable, relatable, blue-collar team over their television and radios as a rookie head coach.
It’s time for Judge and Jones to give them a winning team. It’s time to give them a playoff team.
Judge arrived as the CEO leader the franchise craved when Coughlin reluctantly exited stage right. He commanded the room and the locker room. New York wasn’t too big for him. Just because he learned at the feet of Bill Belichick and Nick Saban didn’t mean he couldn’t be his own man.
He taught the Giants how to be a team again.
The bar is higher now.
It’s time for Judge to teach the Giants how to win again.
Fielding a fundamentally sound team was a critical start. Fielding the best-conditioned team in the league ought to pay more dividends.
“We would get into the fourth quarter and see the other team gasping for air and we were doing fine,” Sterling Shepard said.
Now finish the game, and win the fourth quarter.
There is no stairway to football heaven, but it is time for Judge’s Giants to take the next step, and he will make certain to build it all back — the culture, the standard, the internal expectations, one step at a time this summer, because the 2021 Giants team is different from the 2020 Giants team.
“We don’t want to overlook anything, don’t want to assume anything, and take every step one by one and make sure we’re building this thing the right way,” Jones said.
They built this thing mostly around him over the offseason. A healthy Barkley when the regular season begins — all fingers remain crossed — would give Jones a better ensemble of weapons than Manning ever had.
Judge’s trusted defensive coordinator, Patrick Graham, will be able to field two former first-round picks and two second-round picks in the secondary … and six in all.
So no one wants to hear the word rebuilding anymore. The offensive line better be fixed, period. GM Dave Gettleman has presided over four drafts, traded for Leonard Williams and Jabrill Peppers, and signed a corps of quality free agents, two recent expensive ones in WR Kenny Golladay and Adoree’ Jackson to join James Bradberry, Blake Martinez (COVID list), Logan Ryan, Danny Shelton and Graham Gano.
The regular-season opener against the Broncos is less than seven weeks away, but sometime between this first day and that first day, he will undoubtedly remind the members of his first Giants team — and everyone else — that if you don’t take care of your own business, you might find yourself at the mercy of an opposing head coach (cough, cough, unrelated to COVID, Doug Pederson) who will decide to bequeath the division title to another opponent on the last night of the regular season with you watching helplessly.
The record from 2018-20 is 15-33. The record from 2017-20 is 18-36.
Make your fans proud again.
“It’s a new year,” Jones said.
Mara won’t issue any Playoffs-Or-Bust mandate.
So I will. No excuses.
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