Giants need a win vs. Eagles to stay in NFC East race, Michael Strahan says
Former Giants player Michael Strahan walks on the field before a game between the Giants and the Bengals on Nov. 14, 2016. Credit: AP/Bill Kostroun
The Giants believe they still have a chance to be successful this season. That belief will be put to the test on Thursday when they face the Eagles.
“This game, in my opinion, this is the game,” said Michael Strahan, a Giants Hall of Famer and host of the “Fox NFL Thursday” pregame show that will air from New York City before the NFC East contest on Thursday night. “You have to win this game in order to still feel like you have a chance in the division. Thank goodness the division haven’t exactly worked out for some of these other teams the way they would have liked, so the Giants are still in it.”
Mathematically, anyway. They’re 1-4 and no other team has more than two wins.
“The challenge for these guys will be, do they believe that they’re still in it?” Strahan said. “It’s hard because they’re losing games that they very easily could win. It’s not like they’re out. Last week, had they played [early] in the game with the same enthusiasm that they played later in the game with, and outside of a few calls that were pretty unbelievable from the officiating side, that game was the Giants’ to win. The first game of the season was theirs to win. So many of these games they’ve had opportunities to win.”
So why are they losing? Strahan said most games come down to a single moment.
“In sports, and I always tell guys this, there comes a point in every game where you have to make up your mind: Are you gonna win or are you gonna lose?” he said. “For both teams. The team that really commits and says ‘Hey, no matter what, we’re winning this game,’ seems to be the team that pulls out the win. So the Giants have to decide. Are we in it to win it? Or are we just out here going through the season to hope for another high draft pick?”
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.
