Locker Room Vibes: Giants Keeping Chins Up Despite Sluggish Start
No team expects to start winless in its first three games, including the Giants, who spent an entire spring and summer being exposed to every little detail possible to prepare them for the marathon that is the NFL season.
Yet here they are, winless after three games. And if that's not bad enough this weekend, they'll be in Los Angeles to face the Rams followed by a trip to Dallas next week to visit the Cowboys, neither game likely to inspire confidence in anyone of a Giants win.
While being winless after three games would appear to be discouraging development, Giants' head coach, Joe Judge, stressed the importance of looking to the future rather than dwelling on the past.
“For us, it’s game by game,” Judge said. “Right now, I’m really just emphasizing to our team just weekly improvement, starting with fundamentals and execution.
"We need to focus on what we’re doing day by day to really take care of our own jobs and make sure that we’re improving as a unit and as a team, and then all of the other things will start taking care of themselves.”
Thus far, there doesn’t appear to be any hint of the players getting ready to raise the white flag on the season. Judge has repeatedly said that he sees a solid effort from his players each week, even if those efforts don’t result in a win.
And the players say that the mood inside the locker room is business as usual.
“We know we have to work harder and do better to pull out some of these wins,” said offensive lineman Cameron Fleming. “I don’t think anything is going to get us a down. I think we’re together as a team and we’re just ready to go out there and work some more.”
“We want to win, so the mental state is trying to get a win in any way necessary,” added defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence II. “No one is beating themselves up about it. We’re just taking these as lessons we have to learn from and see how we can improve every week.”
Judge has been a strong advocate of accountability, which is why anytime he, a member of his staff, or a player is asked about the team’s struggles, you won’t hear anyone blame anyone other than himself.
Judge has also stressed the importance of learning from the mistakes made and growing as individuals and as a team, a process that doesn’t happen overnight, especially when talking about a team that is still learning to play together with this new coaching staff and in a new COVID-19 driven type of world.
“There’s a lot of ball left to be played,” Judge said. “I’ll tell you right now, I’ve been on a lot of teams that have started 5-0, 6-0, 7-0, 10-0, and I’m telling you right now, it’s the same feeling in every building across the league right now. All they’re thinking about is things you have to improve on, things you have to work on. It’s not sunshine and rainbows.
“In the NFL, not a lot of things get easier as the year goes on. We have to improve to make sure that as the year goes, we can be competitive and put our team on the field with a chance to be successful,” he added.
Lawrence agreed.
“We can’t do anything about the past or the past games,” he said. “We can only do something about who we play this week, which is the Rams. That’s kind of the mindset that we need to have and that we do have. We’ve been having a good week of practice. Just see where it goes from there.”
