The good vibes had to end at some point.
The stakes are real for both New York football teams now, with the playoffs feeling within their grasps even after the Giants and Jets both took losses on Sunday. That is why this Sunday felt more painful than the two-loss weekends we’ve grown used to in recent seasons, when both local teams were all but officially playing out the string by now.
For the Giants in particular — more on the Jets in a bit — this was a gut-check loss. We know that the analytics pegged their 6-1 start as lucky, and we know that it is hard to get very far by pulling off a fourth-quarter comeback every week. But the Giants did not even put themselves in a position to come back in Sunday’s 27-13 loss to the Seahawks, fumbling away a punt late in the fourth quarter that allowed Seattle to extend its lead to two touchdowns in a moment where that simply could not happen.
Brian Daboll’s group is still 6-2, still defying the gravity of expectations and still in a playoff spot as it enters a bye week. There are also still four games against divisional opponents — and two against the Eagles — left to provide a real test for a season in which the Giants have thus far caught lightning in a bottle.
But you can’t win for 18 weeks and beyond by sheer dint of good fortune. The Giants were not supposed to be in this position, but now that they are, the bar has been raised, and to not have gotten themselves a chance to tie the game when Seattle was held to under 300 total yards is a missed opportunity.
Richie James’ fumble was the first costly error the Giants have made late in a game, but if they are going to leave it until the last five minutes every week, then they can afford no errors. And they have made a habit of leaving it late this year.
That’s a fun way to win, until you start losing.
The Giants have earned every bit of where they are. They’ll also need to get better if they want to make the playoffs. Both of those things can be true.
Their offense didn’t have much of an answer on Sunday once the run game started struggling, and it was a bad day for the offensive line, with Daniel Jones sacked five times and Saquon Barkley held to just 53 yards. The red zone offense struggled and the team was held to just one explosive play of 20 or more yards.
The defense kept them in it, but it’s hard to win games when the offense plays like that.
A bye week, followed by games against the Texans and Lions, is a good opportunity to figure things out before the schedule ramps up again.
But for a 6-2 team, the Giants have a lot to figure out, and an active trade deadline might not hurt them.
Today’s back page
Read more about the Jets game with the Patriots:
🏈 SERBY: Zach Wilson failed the Jets when they needed him most against Patriots
🏈 Tyler Conklin emerging as valuable Jets weapon after busy performance
Growing pains
Was the Jets’ 22-17 loss to the Patriots at home disappointing? Undoubtedly yes. It was a chance to take real AFC East implications into next week’s clash with the Bills, to exact a modicum of revenge on the Patriots, to prove that their 5-2 start was sustainable. And the Jets flunked it.
But let’s remember: this is a young team, and there are going to be speed bumps. That goes in particular for Zach Wilson, for whom this game was very much one to forget. Wilson finished 20-of-41 for 355 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions, looking rushed in the pocket and making a series of key errors.
Knowing when to throw the ball away is something Wilson needs to get better at, something on full display in this game. But a good start to his season and the Jets’ season is not a reason to lose perspective. The Jets are a team with the long view in mind and Wilson turned 23 in August. Barring a wholesale collapse over the next nine weeks, the long-term outlook here is not only good, but it’s been considerably bolstered by what we’ve seen from the Jets this season.
The Jets missed Breece Hall in this game, and that problem won’t solve itself anytime soon, but Wilson’s decision-making is a fixable issue if Jets fans have the patience to deal with it. That doesn’t mean it will be better next week or even this season. And, indeed, for all the encouraging signs at running back and receiver, Wilson’s status as the franchise quarterback still seems somewhat tenuous, a fact that hit home on Sunday.
But the Jets are 4-1 with him under center, and though the loss to the Patriots was the first game in which he didn’t do what was needed in order to win, he has earned himself some time, and his overall improvement from last season to this season bodes well.
One week doesn’t change that Wilson still looks like the best Jets draftee at quarterback since — at least — 2009. That title is damning with faint praise, but this franchise has been undone by impatience and inability to develop talent over the last decade.
So be disappointed. But this is not a moment in which to overreact.
NBA, Nets drop the ball
During the 2010-11 season, Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 and the NBA issued a statement condemning his language following an incident in which he directed an anti-gay slur at a referee. Just 19 months ago, Meyers Leonard was suspended indefinitely after using an anti-Semitic slur on a Twitch gaming stream.
If the difference with Kyrie Irving was supposed to be that he had not used anti-Semitic language himself but instead retweeted an anti-Semitic movie, then that was torn to shreds after Saturday night.
In his first comments addressing the matter, Irving refused to apologize, defended himself and said conspiracist Alex Jones was right about the “New World Order.”
Outside of statements denouncing the tweet, the Nets have done nothing. Neither has the NBA, which did not even mention Irving by name and initially misspelled the word “anti-Semitic” in a vague statement condemning hate speech.
Letting Irving take the court on Monday against the Pacers is plainly an embarrassment to the Nets and to the multicultural borough — with a large Orthodox Jewish population that has been the subject of violent attacks and hate crimes — they represent.
It is not, unfortunately, a unique reaction to anti-Semitism in sports.
At the same time Irving was speaking with reporters, University of Michigan running back Donovan Edwards was playing in a game against Michigan State just days after retweeting a video of Kanye West making anti-Semitic comments. Edwards first claimed the retweet was “a glitch,” then later the same day apologized for “mistakenly retweeting a message that was so hurtful to many.” University regent Jordan Acker then said he plans to take Edwards along with others to the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills, Mich., after the season which, to be fair, is a lot more than anyone is doing to educate Irving. Preventing Edwards — a key player for Michigan — from playing in a rivalry game, or even having the distraction of dealing with his comments during the season, though, was apparently too much.
And just hours before that, a panel outside TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville was lit up near the end of the Georgia-Florida game with a message saying “Kanye was right about the Jews.”
When sports and society alike create a permission structure for anti-Semitism, that’s what you get.
A new source of inspiration for the Yankees
For all the frustrated declarations that the Yankees should blow the whole thing up, the Phillies offer a strong counterpoint in the form of a reminder: in baseball, anyone can get hot, at any time. It just has to be the right time.
By any measure, the 87-win Phillies were not the best team in the National League over 162 games, but they got hot when it counted. If the Yankees, a team whose regular-season results largely show that the right things have been done under Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone, do the same, then they’ll be in the same position. That might never happen, but firing everyone might have meant taking steps back before they took steps forward. Under the current infrastructure, chances are they will at least be in position to be in position.
And there is always the chance to catch lightning in a bottle in October.