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Where does the New York Giants’ morale stand after another deflating loss and another 2-6 start to a season? Right in the middle, says veteran safety Logan Ryan.
“I think it was a great game, a tough loss. The morale is in the middle I would say,” Ryan told reporters this week.
“I don’t think it’s sky high after a loss, but at the same time I think there’s something to learn from in that one. I think we learned how well we can compete with some of the best in the league and we’re ready to go out there and get a win this week. We’re heading into the bye week. This is a big game for us on our schedule. They’re a very big opponent, like I said, and we’re ready to go out there and play well in front of our fans like we did last time we were at home.”
It seems like a vicious cycle for the Giants and their fans. They have had peaks and valleys the past eight seasons with periods where they’ve played well and periods where they haven’t.
But the one thing that hasn’t changed is their performance on the scoreboard. They lose twice as many games as they won and that can grind a team — and its fans — down to a stump.
Ryan says that winning isn’t everything. He mustn’t have heard of Vince Lombardi.
“The results aren’t the entire story,” said Ryan. “In sports, they may seem that way because of records and numbers, but it’s not the entire story. You’ve got to take it — being someone with nine years of experience in this league, you’ve got to take that silver lining and everything and you’ve got to live in the middle a little bit. If you ride that roller coaster, you won’t last long in this league. You won’t be a productive player in this league for long if you hear everything bad and everything good said about you.
“You’ve got to ride in the middle there. I think there’s some progress made there. We obviously want the progress to be wins. Like I said, we have a really good opponent coming in and we’ve got to build on what we did, and we’ve got to be able to finish the game better to result in a win.”
We’ve been hearing this for eight years now, seven of which have resulted in losing seasons. Four coaches have been charged with turning this team into something over that span and four coaches have failed. That includes the incumbent, Joe Judge, who may have changed the culture in the building but has yet to change those results.