Giants GM Jerry Reese: Close loss to Pats could help down road
New York Giants general manager Jerry Reese speaks to the media during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Sunday, Aug. 2, 2015. Credit: Brad Penner
When the Giants return from their bye, they will have six games left.
"And we're going to try and win them all,'' general manager Jerry Reese said Monday. "We have some battle scars from the first 10 games, and we're hoping that makes us battle-hardened and will be a benefit for us going down the stretch.''
The latest of those scars came Sunday in a one-point, next-to-last-second loss to the Patriots. It was the fourth game the Giants lost in which they held a late lead, and those defeats have been decided by a combined nine points.
Afterward, the Giants spoke of the disappointment and frustration of the loss. On Monday, with some perspective, it was more about what they had shown to the NFL -- and themselves.
"I think when you play an undefeated team, a Super Bowl contender, a team that won the Super Bowl the year before, and you play them tough and you feel like you had an opportunity to win, I think it can put it in people's minds, especially the young guys, that we are a good team,'' Eli Manning said. "We have the ability to hang with anybody in this league. We can make a run, we can play with anybody and win any game we play.''
That certainly was the case the previous time the Giants lost to the Patriots, in the 2007 regular-season finale. This one felt a little different.
"We were already in the playoffs and it didn't really mean a whole lot,'' Manning said of that statement game in 2007. "This one, we're trying to make a playoff run. It definitely stings a little more than that one.''
Perhaps, though, it will serve the same function, as Reese suggested.
"If New England is the best team in the National Football League, which a lot of people think they are, obviously we played them to the wire yesterday,'' Reese said. "So we felt like if they're the best team, we feel like we can compete with anybody.''
The key, of course, is to maintain or improve upon the level of play they exhibited for most of Sunday's game. If they play like that the rest of the season, they should make the playoffs and perhaps even make a run deep into January.
"We've played at a pretty high level for a few weeks now,'' Tom Coughlin said. "I think that will continue . . . There's so much incentive here for our team that I can't possibly imagine not grasping this opportunity and going with it.''
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
More Giants
