Why no one crushes hope as quickly as the New York Giants

Martin Rogers

FOX Sports Insider

Week 1 isn’t supposed to be the time for dreams to die. The first half of September is usually still that deviously sweet part of the year that springs varying levels of cautious optimism in the National Football League. 

Sure, 16 teams didn’t win in Week 1, but a solitary defeat isn’t typically enough to erase the initial glass-half-full mentality of most football fans, who need some extra compelling evidence before most realize that, yup, it is going to be another season of misery and emptiness.

Unless, of course, it is the New York Giants we are talking about, perhaps the only team in the NFL to have crammed enough bad news into the first few days of the campaign to indicate that things are toast once again.

Should we be surprised? Not really. No franchise does a more resolute job of snuffing out preseason optimism than the Giants. They are absolute masters at it. A city and a fanbase just waiting to jump on an express line toward hope gets disappointed again and again. There is always room for some cheer. It never lasts long.

Once more, what an opening weekend to be a Giants supporter.

“It starts with me,” head coach Brian Daboll said after Sunday’s demoralizing 28-6 home pummeling at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings. He actually said those same words eight times — with more numbers on Daboll’s habit of incessantly repeating the same thing to follow shortly, to follow shortly, to follow shortly.

In reality, it “started” on Thursday night, a full three days before the Giants got going, amid the mild climes of Sao Paulo, Brazil, when Saquon Barkley provided the ultimate “here’s what you’re missing” message, aimed at the Big Apple.

Just in case Giants followers were wondering what it might look like with Barkley having moved down I-95, the former favorite running back lit up the Green Bay Packers for three touchdowns and 109 rushing yards, and, more importantly, what felt like…

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Publish date : 2024-09-10 20:37:57

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