There is only one way for the Giants and Jets to view the place where the stakes for both of them Sunday will be as high as Odell Beckham Jr. can fly, as high as Darrelle Revis’ accountants can count:
MetLife-And-Death Stadium.
The winner isn’t guaranteed a playoff berth. The loser isn’t guaranteed playoff elimination.
But neither team can afford to think like that now, as the calendar turns to December.
Must-win for the Giants.
Must-win for the Jets.
Because both owe their respective fan bases more than what they’ve given them lately. Both owe their respective fan bases better than another cruel tease.
The 5-6 Giants have missed the playoffs three years in a row.
The 6-5 Jets have missed the playoffs four years in a row.
The stakes couldn’t be higher unless this was the first New York-New York Super Bowl.
There is more at stake for the Giants here, even if the Jets have spent the last 46 years wandering through the desert of despair desperately seeking that second Super Bowl championship, because if they suffer another second-half collapse, the Tom Coughlin Era is likely doomed to come to a sad and regrettable conclusion.
It is no way for a Hall of Fame coach to go out, and if the Giants players care for him as much as they profess to, they will get their heads out of their Big Blue butts and rally around him and save him from the Grim Reaper while they save themselves and their season.
They should be ashamed of themselves if they can’t find a way to win this NFC Least, which is their only road to the postseason.
The Patriots are the roadblock that forces the Todd Bowles Jets to squeak in as a wild-card team, and the field is crowded.
Bowles may be a rookie head coach, and Mike Maccagnan may be a rookie GM, but this is a win-now team with a core of 30-somethings. And you only get one chance to make a first impression on the New York football landscape, and a loud statement that you are no one’s little brother.
This five-game season for the Giants includes a date with the 11-0 Panthers.
This five-game season for the Jets includes a date with the 10-1 Patriots.
All the more reason for the Giants and Jets to approach this as a one-game season at MetLife-And-Death Stadium.
“I feel like when we’re on, we’re on, and when we’re off, we’re off,” Giants corner Prince Amukamara said.
This is not the time to be off.
“This is the next game, and it’s an important one, not just ’cause it’s Giants versus Jets, and both teams share a stadium in the same city and everything, but it’s important because of what it means for our playoff hunt,” Giants QB Eli Manning said.
This has been a season of thunderbolts for both teams: Jason Pierre-Paul on July 4 … Geno Smith getting knocked out of the starting job … Victor Cruz failing in his comeback bid … Sheldon Richardson serving his four-game suspension.
None of it matters now.
What matters now is now.
“We know we’re still in it, we also know there’s not a lot of room for error,” Jets QB Ryan Fitzpatrick said.
Manning gives the Giants the edge at the most important position on the field. Beckham can break the game open the way Cruz did against Kyle Wilson and Antonio Cromartie on Christmas Eve 2011. Revis was guaranteed $39 million to stop otherworldly young stars like Beckham, the biggest Jets guarantee since Broadway Joe’s before Super Bowl III, but he remains in the concussion protocol.
“He’s making slight progress,” Bowles said Monday.
If it’s Marcus Williams (knee) or Darrin Walls instead, we might as well call Manning’s offense Throwdell.
The stakes are high for the 33-year-old Fitzpatrick. He has never played in a playoff game.
“Already plenty of chatter around the community,” Fitzpatrick said, “and with different people that I know that are either Jets or Giants fans, it’s gonna be a great atmosphere that I’m looking forward to.”
They call the Giants-Jets preseason game the Snoopy Bowl.
This one is their Snooper Bowl.