Sterling Shepard feels his old teammates' pain as his Bucs add to Giants' woes

While the Giants' locker room was simmering in anger and frustration with somber, measured, but forceful and often R-rated takes on what went wrong — in this game, yes, but also this past emotional week and this whole flop of a season — someone who had lived those emotions in that space plenty of times over was just down the hallway with a smile on his face.

Sterling Shepard, wide receiver for the Buccaneers, sat among his new teammates in the visiting locker room at MetLife Stadium feeling mostly good about this 30-7 victory over his old teammates in which he caught five passes.

But there was another emotion tinging his celebration: Sadness.

Sadness at what is happening to the organization where he spent the first eight years of his career, where he gave the Giants everything he could — including comebacks from a torn Achilles tendon and a torn ACL — only to be dismissed as washed up after last season. Sadness that the success he is enjoying this season could not happen with the team that drafted him.

Sadness at having been a witness to just how low things have gotten in the Meadowlands.

“I’ve just been focusing on what we’ve got going on over here so it’s kind of tough,” he told Newsday of thinking about what was going on elsewhere in the building long after the Giants fans had started to file out in the third quarter. “But I feel for those guys over there. I obviously have a close relationship with Mr. Mara and Mr. Tisch. You would like to see some more success for those guys. But I’m happy with our dub today.”

That’s probably a complex sentiment shared by a lot of former Giants throughout the league who are enjoying success but also keeping an eye on the happenings in East Rutherford these days. Saquon Barkley, Julian Love, Xavier McKinney. Heck, on the Bucs alone there is Shepard but also starting guard Ben Bredeson and special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey who were with the Giants as recently as last season. They’re all probably glad they got out, but like Shepard, they might have a little survivor’s guilt over it too.

And now Daniel Jones is part of that crew too. Someone can add him to the "Lucky to Be Former Giants" text chain.

“I talked to him earlier in the week,” Shepard said of Jones. “It’s tough. He’ll be alright. DJ has a good head on his shoulders. He’s gonna handle it the best way possible.”

Shepard said he doesn’t know where Jones will land once he becomes a free agent this week.

“I have no idea, but I know he’s going to go do his thing,” Shepard said. “I told him sometimes you need a breath of fresh air. That’s what he’s getting. I have all the confidence in the world in that guy.”

The Giants who remain here are left trying to pick up the pieces. They certainly didn’t think they’d be where they are now, among the worst teams in the league. They are already up to their shoulder pads in something of an unplanned rebuild with a team that will be looking for a new quarterback in the coming months, and, if things continue to crumble, possibly even a new head coach and new management. Co-owner John Mara said a month ago he had faith in the team’s leadership and that he had no intentions of firing Joe Schoen or Brian Daboll. They’ve certainly decided to test his resolve on that matter ever since.

“I think it can always get better,” said Giants defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence, who is signed here through 2027 and figures to be part of whatever this team decides it will look like in the coming years. “It’s a process and right now it’s a long process. I’m here for it. I’m going to keep leading. I’m doing all I can on the field to lead and talking to the guys I need to talk to, the defense, guys on the offense, whoever.”

Linebacker Brian Burns, under contract through 2028, had the same take.

“I feel like this is a process thing now that we’re into,” he said. “We have a lot of young guys who need to grow and they are getting a lot of playing time . . . I do believe in everybody on the team, especially in the defensive room. I do believe they have talent. It’s just growing pains right now. We have to get through it.”

That doesn’t make the losing any easier to take, of course, and Lawrence called the team “soft” and described his frustration level on Sunday as “probably a 10” while Burns said the performance against the Bucs was “terrible” and some other unprintable words. Both of those leaders spoke passionately to the locker room, Lawrence at halftime and Burns afterward.

Even rookie receiver Malik Nabers talked about how sick of losing he is. He’s been here seven months! He has no idea how bad it has been for the past 13 years.

Shepard might have been one to pipe up on Sunday, too, if he was still a Giant. He’s not.

Instead he was one of the last Buccaneers players to come off the field. He had a lot of hugs and handshakes to catch up on. Eventually he trotted through the tunnel clinging to the Wan’Dale Robinson jersey that he’d swapped with his former teammate on the field after the game ended.

“Got to see a lot of familiar faces,” he said.

Well, not as many as he figured he would as recently as the start of this past week.

And Robinson? He had Shepard’s game-worn shirt with him in the Giants’ locker room.

“I love being here, I love this coaching staff, I love all the guys I am around each and every day,” Robinson told Newsday. “I feel like especially in the wideout room we were hand-picked for this. We’re all young, and that’s what they want, to keep this core group of wideouts together. I don’t want to be anywhere else and I want to make it work here.”

But so too did Jones and Barkley and McKinney. And Shepard.

Perhaps Robinson and others, too, are starting to wonder if they need to be elsewhere to find success?

As Shepard told Jones — from personal experience — sometimes you need a breath of fresh air.

That’s especially true when the air around the Giants is as toxic as it has become.

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.