ALBANY – And now, the letdown.
Or not.
“I don’t think we are the same team we were in the past,” Michael Strahan said.
Tonight is another opportunity for the Giants to take a step toward and prove that point to themselves and their many doubters. Yes, this is merely their second pre-season game, and when they line up Sept. 12 in Tampa no one will be thinking back on how they fared in late August against the Jaguars, a team that regularly treats the Giants like a bunch of rag dolls.
Still, the Giants believe they are building something positive and long-lasting, and in order to continue moving in the right direction, they are eager to show they can be counted on for a consistent, professional offensive performance every time they step on the field.
In the recent past, any hint of success rarely was duplicated. Any forceful display was often followed by a reminder of how one of the league’s worst point-producing outfits truly operated. Prosperity led to a team-wide feeling of superiority that created a comfort level where none should have existed. Be it in practice, the preseason or the games that count, the Giants regularly got too full of themselves when they experienced success.
The momentum of a training camp filled with signs of offensive life was further bolstered by a 36-21 victory in Minnesota in a pre-season opener that raised the bar on expectation levels. Now comes the challenge for the Giants of picking up where they left off.
“We’ve had a tendency, I know it’s been here in the past, we can get a little too enamored with ourselves if we do good and too down on ourselves if we do bad,” Jim Fassel said. “We need to level that out, because you’re going to play good and you’re going to play bad and you need to level the performance. That’s what I want to do with this team.”
Fassel missed the domination of the Vikings to be with his mother, who was seriously ill and hospitalized in Arizona. Immediately after the game, offensive coordinator Jim Skipper and defensive coordinator John Fox addressed the team and stated that as good as the Giants played, it was merely one game and that no one should be feeling too satisfied with the performance.
“They said even though we want to set a pattern for winning we can’t afford to be complacent,” running back Tiki Barber recalled.
“I wasn’t there, but more than one person told me that after the game they weren’t giddy,” Fassel said. “It was just, ‘OK, we expected to do that. Now let’s go back next week.’ That’s what I want. We don’t get to be over-enamored with ourselves if we have a good performance. It’s business as usual.”
Anyone searching for signs of euphoria this past week would have come away disappointed.
“I think we look at it as try to go out and play the way we played last week, to show ourselves we can be consistent,” Strahan said. “This is a big game for our entire mental attitude because in the past we haven’t put two and two together. We’ve had a good game and a not-so-good game. The biggest focus for us is to see if we can put two games together back to back.”
If this were a regular-season game, the Giants would not feel very comfortable. Two of their top cornerbacks, Jason Sehorn and Conrad Hamilton, are out with injuries, leaving Jeremy Lincoln as a starter and only rookies behind him. Cedric Jones is also out, giving Bernard Holsey the start at right defensive end. Joe Jurevicius is out at receiver, providing increased playing time for Brian Alford and David Patten. Gary Brown, the starting halfback, remains out of action, as does rookie second-round pick Joe Montgomery, leaving the running game mostly in the hands of rookie Sean Bennett and LeShon Johnson, who will play wearing a cast to protect torn ligaments in his right thumb.
Rather than worry about who is not available, the Giants are more concerned with keeping their improved offense pointed in the right direction. Kent Graham, coming off a sensational showing in Minnesota, will play the entire first half, along with the starters. “I don’t think you can go out every game and think you’re going to put 17 points on the board real quick,” Fassel said, alluding to the job his offense did in dismantling the Vikings.
That won’t be necessary. Consistency, though, is. Each time the Giants can move the ball efficiently and each time Graham can put points on the board, the likelihood increases that this is not merely a summertime mirage.