Golden Tate returns to an upbeat 2-2 Giants team
Giants wide receiver Golden Tate looks on during training camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center on July 27. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Pat Shurmur likes to say that hope is not a strategy.
It can, though, be a powerful force when properly harnessed.
For the last two weeks, the Giants have been running almost entirely on that fuel. They’ve won two straight games, have a rookie quarterback who makes things happen, have played lights-out defense for the past three halves, and find themselves in second place in the NFC East, one game behind the Cowboys.
That they have done it without some of their best players on the field only adds to the optimism.
And now that those pieces are starting to return, the hope they have been collecting can be refined and transformed into its final state: winning.
Wide receiver Golden Tate, who sat out the first four games serving a suspension for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, was back with the team on Monday.
Saquon Barkley, the running back many consider to be the best in the league, is walking around without a protective boot and no doubt plotting his imminent return from a high ankle sprain.
Alec Ogletree, whom the Giants need to come back from a hamstring injury very quickly after losing rookie starter Ryan Connelly to an ACL tear, might be able to practice this week.
It’s a next-man-up league. For the Giants, all of a sudden, the next men up are the ones around whom they have built the roster.
That’s not to say that their replacements have not performed well. Wayne Gallman showed on Sunday that he has the chops to be a starting running back. Sterling Shepard and Evan Engram have played well as the primary passing targets and had large roles in helping to ease Daniel Jones into his place as starting quarterback. Connelly was emerging as a play-maker the likes of which the Giants have not seen in a long time. Before being carted off Sunday, he was the first linebacker since 2007 to have a sack and an interception in the same game.
But the cavalry is coming for the Giants, and their future looks as if it can be better than even the last two heady weeks have demonstrated.
“Whatever we’re doing right now is working, so I just want to come in and be a spark in addition to what we’re doing,” Tate said. “Just help everybody around me get better and just be myself. It’s no secret that in the slot, I’m pretty dangerous once I get the ball in my hands. I feel like I’m pretty dangerous on third downs. Hopefully I’m utilized that way. But whatever it takes to win.”
The Giants are not getting ahead of themselves. Two straight wins may feel monumental, considering the way they have played for most of this decade, but they’re still a middle-of-the-pack team facing two tough opponents. They will play the Vikings and Patriots in a five-day span.
This team is very different from the one Tate saw a month ago, though. The Giants have a different quarterback — Tate said he is “delighted” with the way Jones has played in his two starts — but also a different perspective and different collective experiences.
Now Tate will get to add himself to that mix. Maybe Ogletree will, too. Eventually, Barkley will be back on the field.
All of a sudden, a season that was wilting away has sprouted a few new possibilities.
“Confidence is something you’re looking for,” Shurmur said. “Once you’ve done something a few times and had a little bit of success, I think it does help you.”
It keeps the hope flowing.
“As you can probably sense in this locker room, the vibe is great,” Tate said. “When you win, it’s all great . . . We just want to get another win, go 1-0 this week and keep this thing rolling.”
Great strategy.
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.
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