It's Week 1, and Giants and Jets fans can be hopeful

It is the one thing — the only thing, really — that fans can ask for when they wake up on the first Sunday of the NFL season: Hope.

The journey to the Super Bowl is long and painstaking. It often can take years — or, in the Jets’ case, decades. But the one thing that sustains fans of every team in every season is that one day — whenever it may come — they can experience the joy of winning it all.

For Giants and Jets fans about to invest their time, energy and passion into their teams, there is comfort in the fact that there finally may be a real sense of hope.

Not that this will be the season that the Jets win their first Super Bowl in more than a half-century or that the Giants will add a fifth Lombardi Trophy at 1925 Giants Drive. No, there are more steps to be taken and more years to pass before there is a realistic chance at a championship for either. But there certainly is reason to believe that out of the darkness of sustained ineptitude from both franchises can come the light of legitimate expectation.

Is it a guarantee that the Robert Saleh-Zach Wilson and Joe Judge-Daniel Jones coach-quarterback partnerships can evolve into playoff-caliber teams at MetLife Stadium? Of course not. We’ve been through far too many disappointments to be certain that these relationships can lead to Super Bowl-contending franchises. But if the men do have the right stuff with which to build winning teams, then we are at the beginning of a far more hopeful time than the futile attempts of past seasons.

The Jets, of course, are at the very start of that process with Saleh and Wilson, who will share their first experiences as head coach and starting quarterback on Sunday in Carolina, where the Jets will face another quarterback who came here amid great fanfare but cracked beneath the weight of a wretched coach in Adam Gase and a doomed roster. Sam Darnold couldn’t lift the Jets, so now it is Wilson, who appears to be more gifted as a thrower and a better fit for general manager Joe Douglas’ refurbished roster.

Wilson already is drawing comparisons to some of the great quarterbacks of our time — Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes among them — but the former BYU star is grounded enough to realize such talk is far too premature.

"You can’t take the highs too high and the lows too low," Wilson said of those comparisons recently put forth by CBS analyst Tony Romo. "It’s great to hear, but at the same time, you’ve got to handle what you’ve got to handle and keep getting better, just taking it a day at a time."

A wise choice for the young quarterback, who knows that an apprenticeship can be a long and sustained challenge before success is achieved. That said, it’s hard not to be enthusiastic about Wilson, who has grown steadily through the formative stages of preparing for his rookie season and whose work in the preseason seemed good enough.

Saleh, too, seems to be grounded in reality as he embarks on the early part of his career here. His preparation for this moment has been exemplary; his experience as a high school and college player and then a coach who has done the grunt work of a low-level assistant and risen steadily through the ranks will serve him well now that he calls the shots.

Saleh is ready for this moment, even if it will take some time for his system to grow strong enough to build a playoff contender. He already has earned the trust of his team, in large part because he has made it clear that the players themselves are the sole focus of his mission.

"Everything’s about them," he said. "At the end of the day, they’re the ones who are putting on the uniforms. "They’re the ones that have to execute at a very high level, and it’s our job to make sure that they’re given every opportunity to do that."

Judge and Jones already are a year into their partnership, yet this will be as crucial a year as 2020 — maybe even more so. While Wilson and Saleh are in the honeymoon period of their union, with no scars inflicted by brutal losses or critical turnovers, Judge and Jones face a more urgent challenge.

There were some glimmers of hope after last year’s 0-5 start, when the Giants found their footing and briefly challenged for an unlikely NFC East title chase in a collectively brutal season for the once-proud division. But neither the coach nor his quarterback can afford a repeat of that unsuccessful getaway, which is why Judge has coached with more urgency in a more rigid training camp that was partly responsible for a bench-clearing brawl during a practice last month.

Jones was at the bottom of that scrum and seemed to delight in the intensity of the moment. He now hopes those sparks of emotion can translate into better results moving forward. Toward that end, he’s got a healthy Saquon Barkley, and the addition of receivers Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney ought to give him more chances at success — but only if a questionable offensive line can coalesce to provide adequate protection.

"The biggest difference is just time in the system," Judge said of Jones. "He’s a year further ahead in the league. The time he’s had to prepare and be with his teammates has helped him. I’ve seen a lot of growth with him in terms of being a leader, being a guy who is really vocal and gets the guys going."

Jones remains confident.

"I would say I’m more comfortable having played a year and going through a full preseason and a full camp," he said. "We’re excited to get going."

Let the season of hope begin.

Stafford era begins anew

Matthew Stafford begins his career with the Rams on Sunday night, but things may not feel entirely different for the 33-year-old quarterback. His first game is against a familiar foe.

The Rams will host the Bears, a team Stafford saw twice a year for the first 12 years of his career.

"I know a bunch of guys on their team, I’ve played against a bunch of those guys," he said this past week. "I’m just going to be wearing a different uniform playing them this time."

Stafford asked to be traded by the Lions and couldn’t have asked for a better landing spot than Los Angeles. He joins a playoff team and an innovative coach in Sean McVay.

If there’s a team that can challenge the defending champion Buccaneers in the NFC, it’s Stafford’s new team, and he’s ready.

"We put a ton of work into this, starting months ago," he said. "It’s fun to finally play somebody else and see where we are."

Stafford, who didn’t play a down in the preseason, said, "I’m excited to just go play ball. I love doing this. I want to go play some football and do it with a group of guys that I’ve grown to absolutely love and respect. Just excited to see what we’ve got."

Around the league

Quote of the week: Moments after the Cowboys lost a 31-29 thriller to the Bucs in Thursday night’s opening game, Dak Prescott told seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, "We’ll see y’all again." The Cowboys don’t face the Buccaneers again in the regular season, so Prescott was telling Brady he’ll meet him in the playoffs. "That’s just the confidence I have in this group," said Prescott, who was terrific in his first game back since suffering an ankle injury last season. "This is a playoff team. We’re gonna make a big push this year." . . . Huge AFC game on Sunday when the Steelers visit the Bills in a matchup of 2020 playoff teams. It will be a big early test for Ben Roethlisberger, who returned this season after taking a pay cut and will play behind a revamped offensive line and alongside rookie running back Najee Harris. The good news for Pittsburgh: T.J. Watt agreed to a contract extension and brings his pass-rushing brilliance back for the long haul. Watt led the NFL with 15 sacks last season and became the sixth player since 1990 with at least 13 sacks in three straight seasons . . . This will make the 14th straight season that at least one rookie quarterback has started in Week 1, the longest streak since at least 1950. On Sunday, three rookie quarterbacks — Wilson, Trevor Lawrence of the Jaguars and Mac Jones of the Patriots — are set to start . . . Since 1990, nearly six teams per season have made the playoffs after missing the postseason the previous year. During that time, at least four teams every year have qualified for the playoffs after missing them the year before. Seven teams that missed the playoffs in 2019 — Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, the Rams, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Washington — reached the postseason in 2020.

By Bob Glauber

Special to NewsdayBobGlauber

Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”