How the Giants Are Navigating Through Another Bumpy Season
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
So break out the straight jackets for the New York Giants coaching staff and players because, despite their disappointing 2-6 record to start the season, they’re not about to scrap the processes they've put in place just because the season has taken a wrong turn.
“The results aren’t the entire story,” defensive back and team co-captain Logan Ryan said Wednesday. “In sports, they may seem that way because of records and numbers, but it’s not the entire story. You’ve got to take that silver lining and everything and you’ve got to live in the middle a little bit.”
Ryan’s sentiments might not be what Giants fans who have suffered through nearly a decade of losing football want to hear, but it aligned with the reassurance that head coach Joe Judge offered on Tuesday about the program's direction.
“I believe we’re building towards a program that’s going to be very successful for the duration of time,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that we’re building and doing very well right now that I think we can continue to build on. There are things that we need to keep on correcting.
“I also talked about doing it the right way and that takes time. We’ve got to make sure that we continue working hard and taking a step forward every day, building with the right guys in this program and making sure we continue to do the right things to give us the chance to have success.”
From a football perspective, Judge and his players aren’t ignoring the fundamental mistakes and flaws costing them games. But they’re also not about to let the outcome of games, good or bad, alter their path to where they want to go.
“If you ride that roller coaster, you won’t last long in this league,” Ryan said. “You won’t be a productive player in this league for long if you hear everything bad and everything good said about you. You’ve got to ride in the middle there.”
To do that, the players need to stay bought in to what Judge and the staff are preaching. Admittedly that can be difficult when week after week one goes through the rigors involved in preparing for a game and then through the knock-down, drag-out nature of the game itself only to come up on the wrong end of the ledger, but Ryan believes Judge’s approach will keep the players bought in.
“His approach is he’s going to do everything he can to prepare us for the game,” he said. "I think Joe’s consistency and his approach earns the guys’ respect because he’s not changing with the times week in and week out.
“I think guys need a constant message, guys need a consistent message, guys need to be pushed, guys need to work hard because the wins and losses and the margin for error is really small in this league, as we’ve experienced sometimes in these games. You’ve got to do the little things right in order to be on the other side of it.”
“I think there’s some progress made there. We obviously want the progress to be wins. Like I said, we have a really good opponent coming in and we’ve got to build on what we did, and we’ve got to be able to finish the game better to result in a win.”
And hard as it might be to believe, both Judge and Ryan see the silver lining.
“What I see is a team that goes out there and fights and competes for 60 minutes, comes to work every week intent on having success and playing as a team representing this area with the method of how they play, which is tough, hard-working and sticking it out for 60 minutes,” Judge said.
“We obviously want the progress to be wins,” Ryan added. “Like I said, we have a really good opponent coming in and we’ve got to build on what we did, and we’ve got to be able to finish the game better to result in a win.”
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