The roll call of who is not here could make the Giants remain in their locker room, paralyzed with fear, uncertain whether to take the field or else opt to cower in the corner.
No Keith Hamilton. No Ike Hilliard. No Ron Dixon, for goodness sakes. No Herman Moore to save the day. Not yet, anyway. And no Jessie Armstead to light an emotional fire. He’ll be there, but his burning intensity will be focused on hunting down the Giants, not helping them.
No this, no that.
“It’s easy to make excuses, but in my mind it’s a cop-out, an easy way not to take responsibility and not take the challenge,” Tiki Barber said. “Yeah, we have injuries, but I’m still here, Kerry’s still here, Amani’s still here, we still have to make the plays to win the game.”
Those who remain must be enough. Barber, Kerry Collins, Amani Toomer. Jeremy Shockey. Ron Dayne. Jim Fassel’s creativity. Whoever, whatever. The Giants can moan about their absences and injuries or else get down to the business at hand, which is today’s key game against the Redskins at what promises to be a rainy, blustery and sloppy Giants Stadium.
“This is a chance for us to separate ourselves from Washington,” Jason Sehorn said, “and I’m sure they’ll be playing with emotions running high with Jessie on the other side of the football field.”
The Giants (5-4) have won two straight and can put some serious distance between themselves and the Redskins (4-5) and keep the heat on the first-place Eagles (6-3) in the NFC East, which cannot be confused with a powerhouse division. With the Texans up next in Houston, a major winning streak is possible for the Giants, but only if they capture this home game against an opponent that has won and lost, often in lopsided fashion.
“You can tell the dominant team isn’t in our division,” Sehorn said. “The dominant team is Green Bay and everybody else is fighting for No. 2. We’re all just kind of trying to keep ourselves above water, and you can tell the tread level isn’t very high.”
This game apparently is not big enough to rush Moore onto the field. Or maybe, Moore, the former Lions star who signed on Tuesday, simply could not full-speed-ahead the learning process, could not cram all that new terminology into his head in the span of four days. That leaves the Giants with rookie Daryl Jones as a starting receiver and not a shred of experience (Sean Bennett, newly-signed Derek Dorris) as No. 3 receiver options.
Figure the Giants will need to lean on who is out there on the field and forget about who is unavailable. Also figure if the grass field is a muddy mess, Barber and Dayne will have to carry a heavy load.
“It puts a premium on our money players, Shockey, Barber, Toomer, the guys up front, we’re all going to have to make plays,” Collins said. “You look at where we’re at in the division, Philly’s a game ahead of us, Washington’s a game behind us. This weekend could really shape up the way things are going to go on into the last part of the season.”
Is there enough packed into this game? This is Steve Spurrier’s first crack at the Giants, which is interesting in and of itself. This is the return Armstead, who promises to be a whirlwind of emotional frenzy as he goes against his old friends and tries to prove to his former team that he has more left in the tank than GM Ernie Accorsi and Co. believed he had. This is a chance for the Giants to win a season-high three-consecutive games, a chance to get on a legitimate roll.
This is not about who’s not here for the Giants.
