All of the pomp and all of the circumstance will be perfectly lovely accoutrements to the afternoon in North Jersey. There will be lots of green jerseys interspersed with a preponderance of blue jerseys. There will be scads of trash-talk starting in the parking lot, moving into the stadium, probably lingering all the way to the walk back afterward.
All of this is fun. Let’s call it like it is: Giants-Jets is fun.
All of this is cool. Let’s be very honest: Jets-Giants is cool.
They play once every four years, a Football Leap Year, which is just enough to make you eager for more and rare enough that it never feels played-out.
And the last time was a case-study in how all of the stuff surrounding the game can carry the game. The last time was Nov. 10, 2019, and the Jets entered the game 1-7 and the Giants came in at 2-7. Both seasons were already up in smoke. The Jets raced to a 14-0 lead then came back to win 34-27 after the Giants had roared back for a 27-21 lead, but even Jets fans weren’t all that chatty that day.
Bragging rights? Who has the right to brag when your team has just improved to 2-7?
This is different, and this isn’t just about those eternally flip-flopping bragging rights. In so many ways we will know what the rest of the season holds for both teams by around 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon — sooner if it’s a blowout one way or the other.
If the Giants win, they’re 3-5 and look up to see a spate of awfully winnable games ahead of them. If they lose … well, 2-6 is a dark place, no matter how optimistically you want to spin it.
If the Jets win, they’re 4-3 and have their own roster of ultra-winnable games still ahead of them, and they’ll stay even with the Bills in the loss column. If they lose … well, 3-4 isn’t the end of the world, but in an AFC where it’s starting to look like it’ll take 10 games, minimum, just to eke into the playoffs, that digs a trench that will be hard to escape.
“Any given Sunday, anybody can win,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said, rolling out everyone’s favorite NFL standby, before adding: “We have to take it one game at a time. Obviously, the Giants are looking at life a little bit differently also. They’ve got a chance coming up if they’re looking at their schedule saying, ‘God, we’ve got some winnable games’. So, all of our attention is on the Giants, and we’re controlling the things we have control over.”
Said Giants coach Brian Daboll: “I’ve got a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Saleh. I understand the history behind [the rivalry]. This is a good team that’s playing well, that just beat Philadelphia. They’re off their bye week. So, that’s really where my focus is, just getting onto the tape and kind of turning the page here from the last week.”
So many of these Jets-Giants games have taken place either in the middle of completely forgettable seasons or with only one team playing for any kind of real stakes. Back in ’88, the Jets — already eliminated from the AFC playoffs — kept the Giants from qualifying for the NFC tournament by beating them, 27-21, in the last game of the season, on the last drive of the season.
The debacle four years ago is more the rule of this rivalry, the Giants’ epic Christmas Eve win four years before that more the exception. This time around, it’s a vital game for both teams. The Giants would need a win just as much as if they were playing the Eagles, Cowboys or Vikings; and the Jets would need one every bit as profoundly as if the other team was from Miami, Buffalo or Cleveland.
That they’ll be chasing those goals simultaneously, on the same field, in the same game? That’s fun. That’s cool. But that’s also beside the point. They both need to win. It ought to be something to see.