The Giants have surprised just about everyone around the NFL with their 5-1 record to start the regular season. It’s not just that they’ve been winning, either — it’s that they’ve also been making unexpected comebacks to finish games with victories.
After winning five of six games, how hard is it to stay focused on the present instead of thinking ahead to things like the playoffs? According to wide receiver Darius Slayton, it’s quite easy.
How could it be easy with all of the press they’ve been receiving? It’s simple in the pass-catcher’s eyes — the Giants have already been ignoring their record for years. They’ve just never had this good of a reason as the motivation (quote from Giants Wire):
I don’t think it will (be discussed) mostly because we have experience of ignoring our record for bad reasons. That experience is probably going to pay off if we continue this trend and later on in the season of just ignoring and keep playing ball, keep playing good ball and the results take care of itself.
If there’s one good thing to come out of the rough years New York has experienced, this is probably at the top of the list. And after Landon Collins took a dig at the previous front-office regime, these comments from Darius Slayton also do that in a similar way. It just wasn’t as direct.
Even though Big Blue hasn’t found itself in this kind of situation in recent years, at least they can find some similarities in how to approach preparing for games each week.
The Giants will begin a four-game stretch against NFC East opponents on Thanksgiving against the Cowboys. Before that, though, New York has four more winnable games immediately ahead of them. First, it’s a two-game road trip to Jacksonville and Seattle before two home games against the Texans and Lions.
What will their record look like after the next month? If Brian Daboll’s team keeps grinding out wins, they’ll have to keep exercising that ability to ignore the standings.
Matt Musico can be reached at matt.musico@xlmedia.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @mmusico8.
