Last week, Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz said that the team’s game against the Panthers in Week Three was one that the team had to win.
They didn’t even come close. The 38-0 pasting in Charlotte dropped the Giants to 0-3, a record that rarely results in playoff berths. Losing your first four games makes it even harder, but coach Tom Coughlin isn’t willing to salsa in his receiver’s footsteps and call this week’s game a must-win for the Giants.
“I think it’s a long season,” Coughlin said, via Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News. “We’ve played three games. We have a lot of games to go. Certainly, we want to win, and that’s our entire objective. Are we standing on the edge of the cliff? I don’t look at it that way. I see a lot of football to play.”
There was plenty of positivity around the Giants on Wednesday. Wide receiver Hakeem Nicks ignored last week’s shutout and said the Giants had the pieces to be the league’s best offense, defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said he’s “pretty sure” the Giants will win this weekend and Cruz agreed that a better version of the squad will make an appearance in Kansas City.
Players also talked a lot about adopting better attitudes and approaches to the game, although Coughlin made it clear earlier this week that effort hasn’t been nearly as big a problem as the fact that the team is getting manhandled by their opponents. With a pair of starters on an underperforming offensive line ailing ahead of a date against a feisty Chiefs defense, more of the same has to be a concern for Coughlin and that explains why he’d prefer not to compare another loss to an unrecoverable plunge off a cliff.