Now the Giants must show they can handle the prosperity after the Week 1 euphoria
Anyone who knows Brian Daboll will tell you that it didn’t take him long to come back from Cloud 9, that taking bows to win his first game as a head coach took about as long as it took his clothes to dry after a Gatorade bathroom in nashville.
No one on the Giants Drive since 1925 has reported John Mara or Dabol doing the Griddy outside the lobby’s glass display case that houses the franchise’s four Lombardi Trophies, although you can’t blame them if they pull one out .
Now how will the Giants fare against Carolina at home on Sunday?
We have to count it as prosperity, as Ben McAdoo in 2016 was the last Giants head coach to start 2-0, and Daboll is the first since then to avoid an 0-2 start. Hardly Tom Brady’s definition of thriving, but GB12’s husband wasn’t 22-59 entering the 2022 season.
Daboll is taking no receipts, he’s taking no prisoners in his quest to pitch a Giants team better this week than last. So there he was on Wednesday, spinning his whistle relentlessly under the beautiful Big Blue Sky, twice high-fiving Jamie Gillen after a punt, carefully watching Daniel Jones air it out, conferring briefly between drills with defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, pacing quickly to the field where the defense was working against the fence that read BE PROFESSIONAL in white capital letters on a blue background with a red border.
It’s impossible for any of them not to hear, read or see how the fans quickly went from disaster to euphoria, and the Giants, from Daboll on down, are as excited to see Giants fans on Sunday as Giants fans are to see them.
But the critical message conveyed by Daboll was echoed Wednesday from locker to locker in the Giants locker room.
“It’s just one game. We haven’t done anything yet,” Jones said.
It’s human nature for the fan base to freak out, especially after so many years of fans feeling like they were treated inhumanely by their team. It’s not good for a team that’s just starting to try to learn how to win to put on a Canyon of Heroes parade all by itself.
“You have to feel good after a win,” said Leonard Williams, “but don’t buy into the hype and stick to the process.”
P-yes! Dancing Daboll will play to win. “Don’t overreact,” Saquon Barkley said. “Just focus on the little things.”
A sign in the weight room reads “Win the Day.”
“He was just telling us that like a flush in the last game, we’re on to the next game,” Xavier McKinney told The Post. “He comes from winning programs, he knows how to clean it up and move on.”
Cloud 9 one Sunday, ground floor three days later.
“We haven’t really done anything, we’ve won one game,” John Feliciano said. “I know they’re excited out there and I’m happy for them. But you can win one game and lose the next 16. Our focus is just to go 1-0 every week and he nailed it.”
Indeed he did. To his players. To the media.
“One week really has nothing to do with the next week,” Daboll said. “It’s a season with one game every week. … I think it’s important to stay in the moment for everyone in our organization and focus on the Carolina Panthers.”
Still, it’s a refreshing moment.
“It sucks when you lose a game,” Daboll said.
Tell the Giants owners about it. Tell the players about it. Tell the fans who want to perform MetLife with hope for this.
“They’re pretty smart here, so the more we can get in there, the better it’s going to be,” Daboll said. “They are part of our team in home games and I firmly believe that. … And we have to give them a reason to be happy, too.”
The Giants are 12-28 at home since 2017.
Jones: “We’ve talked a lot about winning at home, about defending home turf, and we’re all excited to do it.”
Barkley: “Hopefully we can go there and give them something to be proud of this year.”
A 2-0 start would be a start. But only a beginning. And the Daboll Giants seem to know it.