There was a time when Redskins-Giants meant a rivalry worthy of a steel cage environment, often with divisional leads or titles on the line.
“For me, it wasn’t so much a game, it was the atmosphere,” said Giants Hall of Fame linebacker Harry Carson.
Yeah, well, there also was a time when milk cost a quarter, a time when Ronald Reagan was president.
So while Sunday’s 1 p.m. start at MetLife Stadium between the 4-9 Giants and the 3-10 Redskins will lack the importance in the standings or the historical significance of the days of the Hogs against Lawrence Taylor and Company, of John Riggins against Carson, of Joe Gibbs against Bill Parcells, it still is an NFC East Division game. And that means something.
“What makes a division game so much more is the teams play twice a year,” Giants defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins said. “They’re teams you’re usually competing for a playoff spot with. Obviously, we’re out right now but every year you compete with these same teams, so it becomes a rivalry,”
“Me personally, I like the NFC East,” said Giants defensive tackle Mike Patterson, an Eagle for eight years, who is well-versed in NFC East battles. “I always thought there were tough teams in this division.”
Said linebacker Mark Herzlich: “They’re like college rivals. It means a lot and at this point, really, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We’ve got to win.”
Now, the only thing at stake may be draft position. But it wasn’t always like that. Take the Giants’ Super Bowl XXI championship year. The Giants and Redskins met in the NFC title game.
“We played them twice in the regular season. Beat them, not handily. It wasn’t like we were that much better. All we heard was, ‘It’s so difficult to beat a team three times in the same season,’ ” former receiver Phil McConkey said of the 1986-87 season. “Parcells is still smiling [because] he woke up that morning and saw flags on the poles straight out, trees bowing over in hurricane-like wind. We won the toss and elected to kick off. They go three-and-out, shank a punt. We’re in plus territory and go in and score. The game was almost over in the first quarter.”
McConkey remembered Parcells gave him precise instructions before the game.
“Don’t drop the [bleeping] ball,” McConkey said of the game the Giants won, 17-0, before stomping Denver, 39-20, in the Super Bowl.
Washington came back the next year and won the Super Bowl. See? Giants-Redskins really was a big deal. Once upon a time.
“We fought hard against one another, but the games were always clean. We always respected them, but they always, I think, respected us as well,” Carson said, recalling that a trip to RFK Stadium to face the Redskins had few equals.
“Playing down there and you can physically see those stands start to rock, that’s the thing that sort of stands out in my mind,” Carson said. “Playing in Giants Stadium, we always felt like we had somewhat of an advantage because those guys were loud down in Washington, but Giants fans were loud in the Meadowlands. For me, [the memory] is not any particular game except … John Riggins running behind the Hogs.”
As former Giants recalled past adversaries such as Riggins, Darrell Green, Dave Butz, Gibbs, Monte Coleman, they remembered some of their own greats. McConkey recalled how a former Redskins cornerback became a Giant and related how half of Washington training camp was spent devising ways to try to stop Taylor.
“Lawrence was great, but he got up a little bit extra for the Redskins because his dad growing up in Virginia was a Redskins fan,” McConkey said. “One game, he walked into the locker room early, bushy-eyed, a hitch in his giddyup. He goes, ‘OK, let’s see what I could do on eight hours of sleep.’ That wasn’t the norm for him.”
And what did he do?
“Tortured them as usual.”
So there’s no LT, no Carson, no Phil Simms-to-McConkey. But the Giants feel the passions are the same.
“They’re going to come out swinging. It’s a division rivalry so throw away the record and stats,” Rashad Jennings said. “It’s Giants-Redskins.”
Additional reporting by Steve Serby