New York Giants Reveal Their Thoughts About Having to Root for the Philadelphia Eagles
Head coach Joe Judge was planning to get right to work breaking down some tape on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who will the winner of the NFC East in the first round of the Wild Card.
Running back Wayne Gallman figured he’d have one of his dearest childhood friends, an Eagles fan, chirping in his ear at some point tonight.
Receiver Sterling Shepard admitted he wouldn’t be “caught dead” wearing an Eagles hat though he pledged his rooting interest behind them.
And while quarterback Daniel Jones will be a temporary Eagles fan tonight, he's drawing the line at having to learn the lyrics to the Eagles fight song, Fly Eagles, Fly!
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But make no mistake about it. The Giants, at least for the rest of the night, are behind the Eagles who host the Washington Football Team in a game whose outcome will determine whether New York advances to the playoffs or goes home.
“We did all we could do at this point. We took everything that we were given and made the most of it at this point,” said Giants defensive back Logan Ryan.
“I know this time last week we were talking about an embarrassing loss and hopes are down and devastation and I told you guys that you have to believe; you have to keep sticking together. The locker room never folded through bad times.”
No, they didn’t, but the Giants, who at one point were in control of their destiny, didn’t help themselves by going on a three-game losing streak that put them in such a precarious situation to begin with.
Regardless, here they are, perhaps wishing they could fast forward in time to find out the outcome of the biggest game in the division today.
“Yeah, obviously we’ll be watching closely and anxiously seeing what happens in the game,” said Jones.
“Every single one of us wants to be back to work tomorrow and back out on the field next week, so we’ll be pulling for Philly no doubt. We were focused on what we were doing this week and giving ourselves an opportunity if Philly wins, so we’ll certainly be watching closely.”
Again, the Giants could have easily avoided this drama had they retained first place down the stretch. But rather than lament over an opportunity lost, the players are looking at the bright side of their 6-10 record and what they’ve been able to build under first-year head coach Joe Judge, which is a tough, resilient team that sticks together in good times and bad.
“I've been on teams where you let things just go downhill from there, when you start the season off the way that we did,” Shepard said.
“That's the reason why I'm so proud of this team because we never had one guy hang their head and just throw in the towel. We're going to fight and we're going to try to win this next game. We took it one game at a time, and we got on that winning streak. Nobody got too high, nobody got too low. We just stayed at an even pace and I'm proud of everybody for having their head high.”
Ryan pointed out that regardless of who wins the division, the Giants, by virtue of their 4-2 record against division opponents, is a solid start for this team, eventually getting to a point where maybe they don’t have to rely on others to determine their fate.
“Regardless of what happens tonight, I feel like we run the division,” he said. We swept Washington. In the first Cowboys game, they had a great play at the end of the game to get them in field goal range, and we let that happen. We came back and avenged that with a great play on our end. The Philly game was a similar thing; we failed in a dramatic fashion in the end."
Ryan then stopped for a moment and smiled. "I can't talk too bad about Philly because I'm a Philly fan today. I need all my South Jersey people to flap their wings tonight, so I won't beat up Philly too bad. Other than that, I feel like we're the best team in the division. We definitely deserve to represent the NFC East. We controlled what we could control today.”
