Giants defense bounced back after ‘bad day’ vs. Patriots, Mac Jones

The New York Giants looked terrible on Wednesday but led by Logan Ryan and Blake Martinez, bounced back vs. the Patriots on Thursday.

[mm-video type=playlist id=01eqbx61yex5whq8aq player_id=none image=https://giantswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

The New York Giants looked like a varsity team going up against a dynasty on Wednesday.

The New England Patriots, led by rookie quarterback Mac Jones, dominated the Giants in nearly every aspect. It was an embarrassing show for New York, especially those on the defensive side of the ball.

[lawrence-related id=673504,673502,673510]

But Big Blue rebounded on Thursday and closed out the joint practices on a much higher note all-around.

“[Wednesday] it was really frustrating,” safety Logan Ryan told reporters. “[Wednesday], I wasn’t really happy how I played, I probably played my worst day I’ve played (of) football in a long time. Personally, I just felt like I didn’t lead our guys either. I just felt like I was out of it and I didn’t lead our guys the right way, whatever the reason may have been. No excuses. That’s football though. This ain’t best of seven. You strap it up, you play the next game. Fortunately, we got a second chance at it and I think we responded better today.”

The Giants started slow against the Cleveland Browns a week earlier as well. It wasn’t until the second day that they kicked things up a notch.

But there aren’t going to be any do-overs come the regular season. These slow starts and bad days will cost the team wins and their leaders know that.

“I feel like the first day, we made a lot of mistakes and weren’t good enough. We didn’t come ready to play and didn’t start fast. I think we went back and looked at the film, made the corrections, came out today and played our style of ball. There will still be things to correct, but we felt good today,” linebacker Blake Martinez said.

“When Blake has a bad day and I have a bad day on the same day, we lose by 100. [Wednesday], we both had bad days. Like I said, it doesn’t happen a lot, but it was just one of those days,” Ryan added. “A lot of people looked at us. I felt like as a leader, how am I going to respond? Am I going to drop my head? Am I going to call it a day? Am I going to get all these pats on the back and ‘attaboys’ because I played here before? I’ve got to come out and respond. I feel like Blake and I responded better today and our team responded better today as a whole.”

Ryan, Martinez and the rest of the team’s starters will have an opportunity to restore faith on Sunday night when they close out the preseason against the Patriots at MetLife Stadium.