Giants must recover quickly for Thanksgiving game
Photo credit: David Pokress | Kevin Boss and David Diehl celebrate Boss' first touchdown in Sunday's game against the Falcons. (November 22, 2009)
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Photos: Giants 34, Falcons 31 (OT)
How long did the Giants have to savor their first win in 42 days? In some cases, just minutes. When they came into the locker room after Sunday's 34-31 overtime win over the Falcons, many of them took off their uniforms and went right for a soak in the ice tubs that had been set up. With sweat still dribbling down their foreheads, they already were preparing their bodies for the most physically and mentally demanding week of the season.
The Giants play in Denver on Thursday night, a short week they've known about since the schedule was released in the spring (and have been unhappy about, voicing their displeasure with the league that the contracted week meshes with such a long trip), but one that is now hitting them with NFL force.
Asked when the transition from the Falcons game to prepping for the Broncos took place, coach Tom Coughlin said: "We made it about an hour after the game."
Some of the coaches on the staff even went over to the Giants' training complex after the victory to start breaking down video of the game they had just played. Hey, the Giants won in overtime Sunday. They already were 3:54 behind schedule, the length of time into the extra period when Lawrence Tynes kicked the winning field goal.
"You gotta move on, move fast and get your body ready to play the game," linebacker Chase Blackburn said.
The Giants almost looked as if they were preparing for the Broncos in their rotations at some key positions Sunday. They essentially alternated their defensive ends from series to series like hockey lines, with Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck in for one set of plays and Mathias Kiwanuka and Chris Canty in for the next.
The one unit that will have the toughest time recovering physically will be the offensive line. They play every snap and usually take most of the week to get their bodies back in working order for the next game. Now that timeline moves up drastically. As he stood in front of his locker Sunday night, Chris Snee shook his head. "It's tough to imagine right now that we have to play in four days," he said.
As for whether the toll is greater physically or mentally, that depended on whom you asked. Center Shaun O'Hara said the bigger challenge will be to prepare physically. "But the good thing is that we did just come off the bye week, so we had a little chance to rest up there," O'Hara said. "Knowing that this schedule was coming up, we knew what we were going to be facing.''
Kiwanuka said the mental part of it is more taxing. "Obviously, the physical aspect of it is you just have to get everybody healthy, but I think most of it is mental," he said. "You have to be able to shift your focus very quickly and get ready for a new team."
That began Monday morning when the team arrived, and by the afternoon, it already was a "Wednesday" in football week jargon. The Giants had what Coughlin called a "modified jog-through" and installed their first- and second-down plays.
Two-thirds of the way across the country, the Broncos dealt with the same issues. "You have to slam a lot of things, a lot of preparation, a lot of film work, a lot of study and a lot of walk-throughs into a much shorter period of time," Broncos coach Josh McDaniels said.
For all the trouble of playing in a short week, though, some are looking forward to it.
"Sure, why not?" tackle David Diehl said with enthusiasm. "You grow up and you watch it. I remember John Madden with the big turkey leg and all that stuff. It's exciting to play."
