Giants winning with total team effort; will it be enough vs. Eagles?
There’s little doubt that the Giants go into the NFL’s Divisional Round of the playoffs playing their best football of the season. After a grueling 18-week season, how does that happen? Part of it is luck. Another part isn’t.
Several players interviewed in the visiting locker room at Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium after the Giants’ 31-24 win over the Vikings on Sunday talked about a feeling among players that represented an all-for-one, one-for-all mentality.
There was Leonard Williams, finally in the playoffs and now a playoff winner. There was Dexter Lawrence, who, perhaps more than any other Giant, has benefited — and taken his game to a whole other level — under this coaching staff.
There was safety Xavier Mc-Kinney confessing to cameras that he felt as if he had let the team down when he had the accident while riding an ATV during the team’s bye week.
There was Adoree’ Jackson back, finally back, and making a difference against Justin Jefferson. (Although there will never be a reasonable explanation – never - for Jefferson getting no targets in the fourth quarter of a one-score game.)
There was rookie outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux, alone, defending Jefferson on a play late in the third quarter with the Giants leading 24-21. Why would Wink Martindale call for that matchup? Because he knew he could.
And there were Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones, both counted out by a wounded Giants fan base who had to blame someone in uniform. (Brian Daboll, upon arrival, quickly diagnosed Jones and Barkley as two of the most mentally tough players on his roster.)
After playing perhaps the finest game of his career, Jones acknowledged that it “means a lot.”
“It’s a big win for us,” he said, “and [I am] grateful to be a part of it.”
Barkley said of Jones: “I know we have an elite quarterback. He’s shown that multiple times.”
The Giants weren’t perfect on Sunday and they won’t be perfect Saturday night in Philadelphia. But they are a team. A team in every sense of the word. And it will be fascinating to see if that’s enough.
How good was Jones?
He became the first quarterback in NFL history with at least 300 passing yards, at least two touchdown passes and at least 70 rushing yards in a postseason game. He has committed one turnover in his past five games and has accounted for nine touchdowns in that span.
“Played good,” Daboll said. “Winning football.”
Jones finished Sunday with 301 passing yards, 78 rushing yards and TD passes to Isaiah Hodgins and Daniel Bellinger.
All of that was possible, Daboll said, because of the Giants’ commitment to preparing for the task at hand.
“I think that’s what you have to lean on in these types of games: your preparation, your practice and then ultimately going out there and executing it in a competitive situation, in a high-stakes game,” he said. “And those guys kept a level head. They were composed. I thought they were prepared, and ultimately, they were the ones that went out there and executed throughout the game to give ourselves a chance to win both offensively, defensively and in the kicking game.”
Asked if his team is playing its best football, Daboll mostly deferred. But he did say this: “We concern ourselves with our preparation and our process and our practice habits and doing everything we can do as a coaching staff and as players to get ready to play a game.”
This will be a short week for the Giants. They’ll need new wrinkles against an Eagles team that defeated them soundly, 48-22, in Week 14 at MetLife Stadium. Jalen Hurts completed 21 of 31 passes for 217 yards that afternoon, with two touchdown throws and a passer rating of 109.2, his fifth best of the season. He also ran for 77 yards and a TD on seven carries.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Daboll said. “I understand we just played these guys twice here in the last month . . . so there’s familiarity on both sides. But again, there’s always a process that you have to go through. It’ll be one less day to do it. So a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
