Giants oozing confidence
Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul is confident heading into this weekend's meeting with Green Bay. (undated file photo) Credit: David Pokress
GREEN BAY, Wis.
Jason Pierre-Paul guaranteed after last week's win over the Falcons that the Giants will beat the Packers in today's NFC divisional playoff game in Green Bay.
Mathias Kiwanuka said before the playoffs started that the Giants are "definitely a Super Bowl team, and hopefully we will be able to go on a run here and it will be like it was back in 2007."
Wide receiver Victor Cruz said a few days before a critical game against the Jets that teams no longer fear throwing on All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis.
If you didn't know better, you'd think this was Rex Ryan's brash-talking Jets, not the usually staid and respectful-to-a-fault Giants led by Tom Coughlin, the anti-Rex when it comes to providing bulletin-board material.
But these are not your ordinary Giants, at least when it comes to talking about their confidence, especially in recent weeks. So pervasive is the Giants' belief in themselves and their willingness to share it that the guy who has been the brashest of all the last two years barely has needed to make a peep.
While his teammates have been only too willing to tell the world how good they feel about their chances in this year's postseason, outspoken safety Antrel Rolle has been a veritable voice of reason.
When asked if he cared to be like Pierre-Paul and guarantee a win over the Packers, he took a pass. But though he declined to use the "G" word, he supported Pierre-Paul and indirectly agreed with the guarantee.
"Whatever my teammates say, I don't care if they say something obnoxious, I don't care what they say, I'm backing them all the way," Rolle said. "That's the kind of guy I am. If JPP says it, we're going to go out there and we're going to get it done."
Before the 2007 season, Coughlin rolled out the expression: "Talk is cheap. Play the game." Can this really be the team that often has lived by those words? Evidently it is, albeit a much louder, much more demonstrative one.
Which is fine with us, because there's nothing wrong with a little bravado every now and then. Even for a team coached by a man who'd rather see all the talk done on the field, not in the newspapers.
"This team seems to be more inclined to speak their mind," said Justin Tuck, one of the team's captains. "I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't think it's anything disrespectful. I encourage people telling the truth. If you feel that way, then say it. Or don't say nothing. So it can either be me sitting up here saying 'no comment' or me sitting up here telling you all the truth."
Tuck has gotten into the act himself, using the word "dirtbags" in reference to the Falcons' offensive line's aggressive blocking techniques. Even general manager Jerry Reese has spoken up this season, defending the team's lack of aggressiveness in the free-agent market. He said in August, "We'll get into the playoffs and we'll make a run."
The Giants are in position to make that run, beating the Falcons, 24-2, in a wild-card playoff game to set up a return match against a Packers team that beat the Giants, 38-35, last month at MetLife Stadium.
The defending Super Bowl champs went 15-1 this season, and Aaron Rodgers is coming off one of the best seasons any quarterback ever had.
But these Giants are undaunted by the challenge and not afraid to tell you how they feel. The volume may not be quite as loud as what has come out of Ryan's locker room at this time of year -- see: the 2009 and 2010 Jets' runs to the AFC Championship Game, filled with back-page quotes. But the Giants' increasingly frequent public pronouncements are a reflection of just how much they believe that going into the playoffs as a hot team, similar to their Super Bowl run four years ago, makes them every bit as much a Super Bowl contender as the team that last held the Lombardi Trophy aloft.
The Giants now go into the historic stadium where Lombardi once walked the sideline, but they do so with a swagger and a confidence borne of a late-season surge that has them one step closer to staking their own claim on that hallowed trophy.
They're only too willing to tell you they deserve to be here at Lambeau Field. And that they deserve to play deep into January and beyond.
