The boobirds rained down early and often on the Giants on that rainy Sunday night home opener last September, and this was Brian Daboll after he and his team had been humbled and humiliated 40-0 by the Cowboys at the start of his second season:
“There’s a lot of blame to go around and I’ll take the head of it.”
And this was Sterling Shepard: “One loss is not going to define the season for us.”
Turned out it would very much define a 6-11 season.
It cannot, it must not, happen on Sunday when the Giants, in red jerseys and new century red helmets, host the Sam Darnold Vikings, a team in their weight class.
The mandate: commemorate the start of the franchise’s 100th anniversary season with the kind of tone-setting triumph in the 2022 opener in Tennessee that Daboll rode to Coach of the Year and the Giants’ first playoff win in 11 years.
“We’ve got high expectations,” Daniel Jones said. “High expectations of what we can be as a group on offense. Based on the work we’ve put in and progress we’ve made, we expect to be a good unit, score a lot of points, and attack a defense a lot of different ways.”
I asked Jones if this is a playoff team.
“Yeah, I think I’m confident about our team and who we have and the work we’ve put in this camp and confident about the work we’re gonna put in this week, so we’re focused on this first week and we’ll go from there, but very confident in our group,” he said.
Daboll is the new creative play-caller, and he and his quarterback are on the same page. The offensive line has experienced players who know how to play their position. Saquon Barkley is in Philadelphia but Daboll has faith in Devin Singletary and prized rookie Malik Nabers is the No. 1 stud Jones has never had.
It is a make-or-break season for Jones, and he isn’t afraid to use the “P” word.
“I think right now, our focus is on Minnesota and making sure we’re ready to go and take care of this first game, get off to a good start,” he said. “We have high expectations of this team, and we certainly plan to play in the playoffs, plan to play in the postseason. We’re going to get there by focusing on what we’re doing right now.”
While it is understood in 32 NFL locker rooms that it is only one game, it is also one game that can reaffirm and reinforce the belief that has been built back up over the summer.
I asked Andrew Thomas if this is a playoff team.
“I think we are,” he said. “I think we have enough talent to do it, but I think it’s more about how well we mesh together, ’cause we have a lot of different moving parts, we have one of the youngest teams in the NFL, so once we see how we respond to adversity, I think that’ll be the true tell of whether we can make it that far. But the only way to get there is take it one day at a time, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Because no one ever won anything taking it two days at a time.
“It’s important to get off to a fast start,” Jones said. “We’ve stressed that, and everyone’s aware of that.”
Cowboys 40, Giants 0 was Bobby Okereke’s Giants debut and I asked him how jarring it was.
“I think jarring is the right word for sure,” he said. “We learned the lessons from it, and yeah, we got a new zeal, a new energy in the building, and we’re excited.”
I asked Okereke if this is a playoff team.
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“For sure,” he said. “We’ve been working towards that, and obviously we’re gonna take it one game at a time.”
Because no one ever won anything taking it two games at a time.
The Cowboys sacked Jones seven times that night. I asked him how painful 40-0 was physically and emotionally.
“Very painful,” he said. “You put in a lot of effort, a lot of work, to get that result was tough, for sure, on all of us.”
Darius Slayton all but cringed when asked about Cowboys 40, Giants 0.
“I don’t have memory of it. Deleted it. … Not even too sure what you’re referring to obviously,” he said, tongue in cheek.
You want to be a playoff team? Try showing for your home opener in your 100th season.
