Giant leadership? Let's 'C' who steps up and fills that role

One of the great images of Super Bowl XXI came not during the game but just before it. For the ceremonial coin toss, the Broncos sent out an entourage of captains to represent their team. The Giants? They sent out one solitary figure, linebacker Harry Carson, standing there outnumbered like Gary Cooper in “High Noon.”

The Giants are down to one single captain again, though this time it’s not by choice, it’s certainly not in a Super Bowl setting and no one will compare it to a great Western scene.

A season that began with five deputized players wearing those gold C’s on their chests has come down to long-snapper Casey Kreiter being the last one standing.

With Daniel Jones released and Andrew Thomas on injured reserve, the offensive captains are gone. The defensive captains have dwindled, too, with Dexter Lawrence done for the season and Bobby Okereke out with a back injury.

It was a bit of a joke last year when the Giants named 10 players as captains. At least that way they had depth.

“Captains,” coach Brian Daboll sighed, “we’re down on them.”

Kreiter said he isn’t worried about what this means for the team in terms of its leadership. He pointed out that there are two former captains still on the roster — kicker Graham Gano and cornerback Adoree’ Jackson — who still have big voices.

Nor will Kreiter likely have to be alone as Carson was for the coin tosses; Daboll said he probably will appoint healthy available veterans to join him for that symbolic moment, although he left open the possibility of just Kreiter on duty.

“It’s not like they’re going to a street fight,” he said.

The point is that captains aren’t just the designated honorees.

“The good thing about this locker room is there are a lot of leaders,” Kreiter said. “Not having quote-unquote captains out there doesn’t mean we don’t have leaders.”

But even with some of those guys stepping up to have bigger roles and voices, the Giants still face a glaring vacuum in their locker room hierarchy.

It’s an issue that has been an underappreciated reason for their failures all season long after so many young building blocks of the culture parted ways with the team in recent years (Saquon Barkley, Xavier McKinney, Julian Love and Leonard Williams). So even if they ask Brian Burns, Greg Van Roten, Darius Slayton or others to step in as temporary captains, they need to start cultivating a new generation of players around whom they can start rebuilding their identity.

That process starts in earnest this week with nominees that will include Kayvon Thibodeaux, Micah McFadden and even rookie Tyler Nubin.

Thibodeaux said leaders shouldn’t have to wait in line to be heard.

“It’s smoke and mirrors because the average [career] is only three years,” he said. “So it’s like, how long do you expect a great player to come in and not say anything? That’s kind of not realistic . . . I’m a guy that believes this is a meritocracy. So if you make plays, you have a voice. If you don’t make plays, you don’t have a voice. That’s the name of the business. So I would say for young guys coming in, continue to make plays first and then be an impact in leadership.”

McFadden agreed that it can be tough to balance youth with leadership.

“The more you produce, the bigger your voice is,” he said. “Guys listen to the leaders and the people who are leading from the front and doing their job and executing at a high level. So there’s always that process that goes from high school to college when you come in as a freshman and you’re kind of back at the bottom of the totem pole, and then again in the NFL. It’s definitely a unique experience and something you weigh the waters in and find your place.”

But, he said, he feels as if he has played well enough to graduate. “The more experience I’ve gotten and more play time, I think I have a bigger voice, especially in our linebacker room,” he said. “And in the defensive room as well. Just pointing things out, and when there’s younger guys, I can help them along the way.”

Even the established veterans sometimes have a hard time leaning into that part of the job. Burns is one of the most decorated players on the team — certainly the most decorated who will be playing on Sunday — but he often can be reserved rather than rah-rah.

“I step in where I feel like I’m needed,” he said. “I don’t like to overdo it when it’s not necessary. But in times when it’s needed for me to speak, I speak.”

That’s happened a few times this season. Probably more often than Burns figured it would.

With five meaningless games left after the Giants were eliminated from postseason contention on Thanksgiving, such leadership may be more in demand now than at any other point. Burns said he is keeping a vigilant eye out for younger players slacking off.

“It is a pretty tight situation we’re in,” he said. “We need to be a little urgent in making sure they are ready for these games.”

He’s decorated enough to be able to throw that kind of weight around if he isn’t happy with what he sees.

Not everyone is.

Now they might have to be.

This next month is basically tryouts for next year’s captains.

“If a guy sees something as a part of a bad culture or a negative culture, I think it’s on him or on whoever else sees it to say something or do something about it,” Thibodeaux said. “As long as it’s positive, as long as it’s done in the right mindset, I think it’s good.”

Nearly four decades ago, the Giants won a Super Bowl with just one official captain. They also had Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor and Bill Parcells and Mark Bavaro and Carl Banks and Leonard Marshall . . . but they had one captain.

These Giants don’t have any of those.

It’s too late to salvage this season with an influx of talent to this roster, but if they can start to cultivate the kind of character needed to build their way out of this abyss, then the back end of this dreadful season may actually pay off in the future.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.