A Giant Showdown Looming In New York

NYG vs NYJ

The Giants and Jets are both reeling after losses this weekend, and now go head to head this coming week. Only one can salvage their season. Adding to the intrigue is the battle for control of New York. Interestingly enough as close as the two teams (they share the same stadium), they have not played many meaningful games.

Welcome to the rivalry that should be.

For all the history of these teams – the Jets have Joe Namath and Super Bowl III while the Giants have Lawrence Taylor, the David Tyree catch and three titles – none of it intersects. Not one moment defines this rivalry, only 11 mostly forgettable games over the past 42 years. But that all changes Christmas Eve, when the two meet with their seasons on the line.

Granted, the Jets may only be a just-above-average 8-6 and the Giants are pedestrian 7-7 (finding themselves here as the result of a 1-5 stretch), but this game has actual subplots. There are pressing issues (both are trying to maintain control of their playoff chances) and long-term implications (the Jets desperately want to overtake the Giants as the New York football franchise).

Rex Ryan started off Jets-Giants week with his declaration that the Jets are the best team in New York.

The Giants, though, want to not only make Ryan eat his words, but defensive end Justin Tuck is looking forward to winning “in our stadium” and sending Jets fans home disappointed on Christmas Eve.

“It is one of those cross-town rivalries,” Tuck said on WFAN in New York this week. “There’s two teams, even though we haven’t played each other a lot, there is kind of bad blood between the two.”

“(Ryan) has made the Jets relevant again,” Tuck continued. “But we still feel as though we got the best team. Like he said, you get an opportunity to prove it on Saturday. But the best trash talker is not going to win the game. My goal is to get the Giants to have more points and have Giants fans leaving the parking lot happy and Jets fans leaving sad.”

When it comes to hard feelings, the New York Jets and New York Giants have plenty of grudges with one another. Unfortunately, that has to nothing to do with anything that has been decided on the field… until now.

There’s even a cool individual battle as the Jets’ Plaxico Burress faces Giants coach Tom Coughlin for the first time in a game that counts since the wide receiver, who caught the game-winning TD pass in the Super Bowl four seasons ago, was sent to prison and cut by the Giants for his 2008 gun incident.

In that regard, this game is perfectly set up to be the first one that fans of both teams can really get excited about.

The collapsing Giants (7-7) come into this all-important game looking to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Giants have lost five of their last six games, including an embarrassing 23-10 home loss to the Redskins. They have lost their last three at MetLife Stadium and are just 3-4 at home. 

So perhaps it will be a good thing that the Giants will be the road team on Saturday in the stadium they share with the Jets. The Giants tend to focus better when their backs are against the wall and they are in hostile territory like two weeks ago in Dallas where they pulled out a 37-34 win.

The Giants looked disinterested at times and in dire need of a spark against the Redskins. They shouldn’t have any problem getting up for this game with all that is at stake and Rex and the Jets on the other side.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin’s team can still win the NFC East by beating the Jets and then taking care of the Dallas Cowboys at home in the season finale on New Year’s Day.

If they lose to the Jets, who are fighting for their playoff lives as well, the Giants still could win the East but would need help. They would need Dallas to lose to Philadelphia on Sunday and then have to beat the Cowboys in the season finale while having Philadelphia lose to Washington next week.

But first up are the Jets, who seem like the perfect medicine for a team that struggled to find intensity against the Redskins.

“I certainly hope it can be good,” Coughlin said of the Giants-Jets rivalry hype sparking something in his team. “Let’s face it, you have a city that has certainly divided. Half the city, or you would think half would be in favor of one team, half the other. Certainly you’re going to sense it. The excitement I would hope would be even more stimulation to make this an extremely important game, more than it is. I don’t think you need any more, quite frankly, to understand how important the game is to both teams.”

Until now, however, the rivalry between these teams has been limited to their annual preseason matchups and a bunch of chatter. There was Jets owner Woody Johnson complaining about the Giants getting to play the first regular season game at the MetLife Stadium in 2010. There was Giants owner John Mara suggesting his team would never appear on “Hard Knocks”, in contrast to the Jets who were playing to the HBO crowd in 2010.

There is the constant view that the Giants are part of football royalty while the Jets are little more than nouveau riche party crashers. When New York was awarded the 2014 Super Bowl, Johnson and Mara looked about as comfortable together on stage as Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.

Fact is, this rivalry has so little on-field history that it rivals the war of 1812 in terms of significance. The Yankees and the Mets – featuring the rage of Roger Clemens against Mike Piazza – has featured more vicious combat. Of the 11 times the football teams have played, the only time both were on the way to the playoffs was in 1981. Even then, the game was in the middle of the season and didn’t appear to have as much on the line.

Worse, the only other time the teams played when they were in the midst of winning seasons was 1988, when they faced off in the season finale. That game has some significance because the Jets, who finished 8-7-1, managed to knock the 10-6 Giants out of the playoffs with a victory.

The only other time the game has been remotely interesting was when Bill Parcells, who led the Giants to their first two Super Bowl victories, coached the Jets against the Giants in 1999. However, even Parcells’ presence couldn’t do much to dress up a game that featured a 4-7 Jets squad against a 5-6 Giants team.

Eli Manning said neither team wants to see the other having success when sharing the area and same stadium. But the franchise quarterback said he is not also going to hang on every quote and headline from Ryan this week, either.

Coughlin said no matter what talk transpires this week, the only thing that matters is which team will have the final word.

“The game will be settled on Saturday afternoon at one,” he said.

Until then, there is one thing both teams probably agree on.

After the Giants had just been embarrassed by the Washington Redskins. Likewise, the Jets were humbled later Sunday by the Philadelphia Eagles at the other end of the Jersey Turnpike. Sunday and Monday weren’t time for big talk by either team.

By Saturday, expect the disappointing losses to be replaced by the chance to both gain momentum deflate the hopes of their crosstown rival.

By game time, there will be plenty of the teams’ fans talking about the promise Jets coach Rex Ryan made in his book “Play Like You Mean It”.

“We are going to take over the town whether the Giants like it or not, so those fans on the fence that like both teams are going to be Jets fans in the end,” Ryan said as part of a diatribe that went on for the better part of 11 pages.

Rex Ryan sums it up as only he can.

“It’s going to be ridiculous. You know it’s going to be… that’s a war,” Ryan said after the Jets’ loss. “Whoever loses is probably out, and the fact is that we’re both fighting for our playoff lives. But to say that there won’t be any extra incentive is not right.”

“I mean obviously, there’s going to be extra incentive, extra motivation. You go to the same restaurants, you go to the… whatever, guys date the same girls, I don’t know.”

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