The Giants season starts, and fans are excited. The stadium is full (and loud) in Week 1. Then, the Giants start losing.
And losing.
And losing.
Then the boos start.
Then the fans stop showing up.
It’s a familiar and depressing routine for this fan base, but that’s the situation they already find themselves in again in 2021 as they barrel toward another playoff-less season, the ninth in 10 seasons, unfortunate for a once-proud franchise. Some Giants players (like Leonard Williams) have criticized fans for booing them at MetLife Stadium.
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Others, like cornerback Adoree’ Jackson and tackle Nate Solder, seem to get it.
“We aren’t doing anything to not get booed,” Jackson said on Monday. “So we’ve just got to change that.” Solder even cited a University of Utah study to explain why the boos aren’t even a bad thing necessarily, pointing out that “the testosterone levels of the fans goes down after a loss, so what that tells me is they’re in it with us.”
Both are right — but those are just words. They wouldn’t be the first Giants players to admit things need to get better. But Joe Judge on Monday was directly asked to assure the fan base that things won’t always be this bad. He obliged.
“This is definitely going to get better, so there you go,” Judge said. “I don’t know what kind of guarantee they want, but I can assure everyone out there that’s a Giants fan and they want to know when it’s going to turn. I can tell them right now we’re working tirelessly to make sure we get this thing turned around in the right direction, not just for short-term results, but for long-term success.”
At this rate, though, it’s fair to wonder if Judge will still be around for the long-term part of that equation — or if his messages are even still getting across to his players. The Giants are 1-5 now after starting 1-7 last year. Judge is 7-15 in his first 22 games, which is the same record Pat Shurmur had as Giants coach through the same stretch, and worse than Ben McAdoo. The Giants are -63 in point differential, tied with the Lions for the worst in the NFC.
The Giants trailed the Rams 28-3 at halftime in Week 6, and Judge felt like he needed to challenge his players to show that they had enough to fight to compete for the final two quarters. It’s not even Halloween, and it seems Judge already feels like he needs to challenge his players to motivate them.
That’s ... scary.
“I wanted to see who’s going to finish the game. I wanted to see what type of fight some of these guys have,” Judge said after the game. “We’ll go through the tape, but there are some guys I could see with the eye test right away that fought and finished, and that’s how we’re going to do things around here ... I wanted to see who’s going to finish this game and who was going to fight.”
He seemed to be generally OK with how the players fought to end that game, even though there were some signs — like on Cooper Kupp’s easy 13-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter — that not everyone was giving it 100%.
Monday, after Judge had a chance to watch the film, he declined to mention any specific players that did or did not fight for the full 60 minutes, but he did say: “The things I didn’t like in the second half or the first half for that matter we’ll fully address to the team as a whole and independently. We’ll make sure to move on from that.”
Is it possible Judge’s tough-at-all-times act is wearing thin?
That’s something ESPN analysts Dan Orlovsky, Rex Ryan and Ryan Clark — all former NFL players or coaches — posited on Monday morning during their “Get Up” show.
Orlovsky called Judge “Timmy Tough Nut” and said “players in the locker room don’t like Timmy Tough Nut coaches when you’re losing football games.” Clark said that “at some point you have to evaluate (Judge’s) ability to take care of a team ... it seems more about this image he wants to portray rather than connecting with the people in his locker room.”
Ryan, who once coached the Jets, said: “You think Giants fans are happy Judge is their football coach?”
The more important question right now, though, is if Giants players are happy that Judge is their coach. In training camp, many came to his defense when some questioned why multiple players had retired or criticized him publicly for his methods.
Even if they do believe in Judge, perhaps his methods aren’t working if he felt the need to light a fire under a team that had already lost four of five games before the Rams loss.
“I think it’s ... him trying to create an identity,” defensive lineman Leonard Williams said. “He knew that we were down. He wanted to see who’s going to go out there and keep fighting and represent for the guy next to them. You know, don’t hang your heads, don’t drop your shoulders, don’t look like a quitter out there on the field and keep playing.”
Don’t look like a quitter.
Again, it’s only been six weeks.
“We cannot give up on each other and we cannot start pointing the finger at each other and saying, ‘It was this guy’s fault or that guy’s fault’, or this thing can really go downhill,” wide receiver Sterling Shepard said. “I’ve been on teams where that has happened and you can really start to see it snowball.
“We have to keep each other’s heads up.”
Judge better hope things don’t “snowball” in the locker room. That’s what happened with McAdoo before he got fired.
And McAdoo won more games than Judge.
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Zack Rosenblatt may be reached at zrosenblatt@njadvancemedia.com.