In past years, a season-ending injury to the starting quarterback or key pass rusher, or a gut-punch loss to a team they were supposed to beat, might have reduced the New York Giants to a pile of rubble.
But not John Harbaugh’s Giants. They’re operating with one of the league’s worst injury situations, one that has robbed them of several key players, including starting quarterback Jaxson Dart, outside linebacker Brian Burns, and inside linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, among others.
And while the team is far from a juggernaut, Harbaugh’s scrappy Giants have fought and clawed their way to last year’s win total while also padding their lead in the NFC East after a hard-fought 27-21 overtime win against the Houston Texans.
“Man, that was a players’ win in every way — blocking, tackling, special teams, covering kicks, pass game, operating, getting stops when we needed stops, fighting back from adversity,” Harbaugh said after the game.
“But just play one play at a time, as well as you can, regardless of the last play, with no thought for the next play, as hard as you can. As [OLB] Abdul Carter told the guys at halftime, ‘No matter what, empty the tank. No matter what, come back in here with nothing left,’ and that’s what they did.”
The Giants, who have now played two overtime games in three weeks, have shown resiliency, maturity, and determination. When they get punched in the mouth — and they have a couple of times this season — they don’t wave the white flag.
They take their lumps and come back ready to serve a helping of their own.
“It tells you who they are. You might have thought before the game, we’re going to find out about our guys. We’re going to find out about who they are, and we did, and you saw it. They did, they took the bull by the horns, and they got the job done,” Harbaugh said.
A look around the Giants locker room offers so many individual stories of resiliency, starting with running back Cam Skattebo. Dealt a “quasi-benching” a week ago for carelessness with the ball and his assignments, Skattebo zipped his lip, went to work, and produced a career-high 124 yards on 17 carries and one of the four rushing touchdowns the Giants had that day.
Then there is Devin “Motor” Singletary, who finished with 41 rushing yards on five carries and the game-winning touchdown, a 30-yard dash. Singletary, who took a pay cut to stay with the Giants, found himself squeezed out of the running back rotation for three straight weeks.
He didn’t complain and kept working to earn his chance. And when it came, he made the most of it.
“I can’t say enough about ‘Motor’ [RB Devin Singletary], and that’s on me. That’s on me. We were looking for the formula, and he was the odd man out for several weeks. Not because of anything he did or didn’t do; he just was the odd man out, and that’s exactly what I told him,” Harbaugh said.
“He asked me, ‘What can I do?’ I said, ‘There’s nothing you can do; you’re doing everything you can do, and your time will come.’ It was going to come. And look where it came, right there, and he came through.”
Inside linebacker Micah McFadden is another who rose to the occasion. A starter until a season-ending foot injury last year, McFadden never got the chance to reclaim his starting job once the team signed veteran Tremaine Edmunds and drafted Arvell Reese.
But McFadden, whom Harbaugh always called a starter, was right there to step into Edmunds’ role as the defense’s “quarterback” when Edmunds was lost for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury.
McFadden’s first start resulted in a 10-tackle day (all solo efforts), plus two tackles for loss and a quarterback hit, the most productive stat line of any Giants defender.
“He had a bunch of tackles. Then he made the first-down tackle when they ran that sweep play; he shows up out of nowhere and tackles it for a one-yard loss, and that set the tone. That’s really what got them off the field and gave us a chance,” Harbaugh said.
There are so many more stories of resiliency.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy, whose career was on life support in Minnesota before he was traded to the Giants for a fifth-round draft pick a few weeks ago, has looked right at home in this offense, finishing 20 of 28 for 252 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.
Cornerback Deonte Banks, who many thought was on his way out the door at the end of last season, has played lights out since winning the starting cornerback job. This week, with Greg Newsome II sidelined with a concussion, Banks drew the Texans’ top receiver, Nico Collins, and limited him to one catch on four targets for just four yards.
“I probably should have given him a game ball,” Harbaugh quipped. “Maybe he’ll get defensive player of the game. But he was on it, man. He had so many tight coverages. You have to cover these guys tight, especially in breaking routes, man and zone, because his quarterback is really accurate, especially when he moves in the pocket.”
Other contributions helped make the win possible, but the common trait they all share is resiliency. And that starts with Harbaugh and his staff, who have worked to implement a support system that builds players up rather than tears them down.
“I would say just a lot of moments stacked on top of each other because they just didn’t bat an eye and they continued to work hard and fight. Every type of situation, they met the same way,” he said when asked if there was a moment when he realized the team had the mental makeup to withstand adversity the way it has.
Moving forward, Harbaugh said players who underwent season-ending surgery will be allowed to travel with the team.
“I just think it’s an ongoing type of a thing,” he said. “That’s how you build — it’s shared experiences. It’s fighting through all these things together that draws people close together, and that’s how a team is built.”
For now, Harbaugh’s scrappy, first-place Giants will go into their bye week with their effort and resiliency rewarded, and with a chance to heal up for what should be a tough second half of the schedule.
“Now, you’ve got to make something of it,” Harbaugh said. “It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t build on it, right? But it doesn’t mean we’re going to win a championship yet. It means we have an opportunity, though. We have an opportunity to get ready for the next two games starting with Philadelphia, and then a quick turnaround, so we’ll be thinking about two games as a coaching staff over the bye week.
“The two most important games of the season will be coming up after we come back from the bye, which will set the direction for the rest of the season, really. But we’re going to be in this thing until the end.”
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