Oh boy. 4 New York Giants Wide Receivers (Odell Beckham Jr., Victor Cruz, Roger Lewis Jr., Sterling Shepard) didn’t go on the team plane after their win against the Redskins and instead took a plane down to Miami to party with some very notable celebrities. Now I’m not going to go into the details of the party because that isn’t the part that matters to me. Who was there (in terms of celebrities) means nothing. How late they stayed out means nothing. The bottom line is I don’t like this at all. Let’s start with a little history lesson.
The New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012. From that team, only three players remain on this year’s roster (Eli Manning, Victor Cruz, Jason Pierre-Paul). Since then they have not made the playoffs. Over the past four years the Giants have been more of a joke than anything else. After winning the Superbowl they followed that up with 9-7,7-9,6-10,6-10. All three of the losing seasons Odell has been a part of. Fast forward to this season and finally the Giants come alive. Finishing 11-5 and clinching a playoff berth for the first time in four years. Their first round matchup is against the red-hot Green Bay Packers on their own home turf. A grave challenge. I look at Odell and say what have you accomplished? I’m not denying all the records you have broken. Over 4,000 yards and 35 touchdowns through your first three seasons is nothing short of amazing. But Odell you haven’t played a playoff game yet in your career. Good players put up stats; the great one’s win championships. Cruz you are certainly a champion. You were arguably our best receiver in the 2012 championship run. In most cases I would give you the benefit of the doubt but not this one. You understand what it takes to win a SuperBowl. You understand what it takes to go into Lambeau Field and win. How about showing these younger guys that? Now maybe I’m overreacting (doubt it) but let’s look even deeper at this. The 11 wins this year is something to be very happy about (could have been 14). Heck it is only one less than our last two seasons win total combined. We also have to point out the fact that it wasn’t our offense driving us there. In fact, offensively we have been anemic all year. I challenge anyone to show me a game in which we played well offensively for a full 60 minutes.
My final issue with this is simple. Aaron Rodgers and this Packers team have been playing almost perfect over their winning streak. Having to play them on the road is going to be a grave challenge as is. Now they just gave the Packers more motivation to beat them. I can hear the locker room now. “Look those guys think it’s going to be easy against us†may not be how these receivers feel but it is how it is going to come off to the Packers.  If these guys come to the field on Sunday and play great football, then no harm done. But if they come in and look as lackluster as they have all season well, they will have some questions to answer.
