Forum allgemein » It's hard to say whether the New York Giants are engaging

in wishful thinking or there is something to their optimism these days.The reality is the Giants have a 1-4 record heading into Thursday night's game against the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles (2-3) and they are facing long odds in a bid to make the playoffs in coach Pat Shurmur's first season.The struggling Eagles have beaten New York in their last three meetings and seven of the last eight. The Giants are coming off an excruciating last-second 33-31 loss to Carolina on a 63-yard field goal by Graham Gano Youth Derek Barnett Jersey , and now they have to rebound with three days of preparation.But the Giants believe there is reason for hope. Their offense scored 30 points for the first time since the end of the 2015 season. The team rallied from an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to take a lead with just over a minute to play, only to be denied by a near-record kick. And they did all this despite dealing with some ill-chosen words by star receiver Odell Beckham Jr., about Eli Manning and the team's heart in the days leading up to the game."Very optimistic," Beckham said Tuesday when asked about the team. "I've always said, it's a long season, and we have an opportunity to come in here in a big, big division game and be able to reshape our season. We know what we have in front of us, short week, just coming off of a tough loss, so we're all just trying to get our minds wrapped around what the game plan is, how we can come out and best beat Philly."The Eagles tend to bring out some of the best in the Giants. Despite winning only three games last season, they lost two games to Philadelphia by eight points, with the first coming on a last-second 61-yard field goal by Jake Elliott. The second was 34-29 in a game New York trailed by two points entering the final quarter.The Giants also could be getting some key players back. Linebacker and leading pass rusher Olivier Vernon, who has yet to play because of a high ankle sprain, is very close to ready. Tight end Evan Engram, who missed the last two games with a sprained knee, was going to test his knee in practice on Tuesday. Both were limited.Engram watched the telecast of the game in Charlotte this past weekend and was encouraged."There was a point in that game where maybe last year or the old DNA of this team would've given up or would've tapped out Youth Carson Wentz Jersey ," Engram said.Rookie halfback Saquon Barkley said the Giants scored 30 and left points on the field."We got to continue to keep growing, continue to keep working and to be able to put up 30 points," Barkley said. "I think that game showed it was the toughness, the grit, the passion that we played with as a team, and obviously the outcome wasn't the way we wanted to be, but you could learn a lot of things from that game and take that game a long way."NOTES: PK Aldrick Rosas, perfect on field goals and PATs this season, did not practice again because of a sore quad. The Giants have signed Marshall Koehn to their practice squad. He was in training camp. He was working for Randy's Flooring in Coralville, Iowa when the Giants called Monday. "I looked at my phone because I was making a delivery and there were two calls from my dad, two from my mom and two more my agent. Everyone was freaking out." Needless to say, he found his way to New Jersey. The Giants can wait until 4 p.m. on game day to active Koehn if needed. ... LB Connor Barwin (knee) and WR Russell Shepard (neck) also did not practice. Barwin has been dealing with a knee issue all season.__ For the first time in the history of the NFL, both conference championship games went to overtime. While civil, reasonable people would see this as a distinct outlier — as nothing more than a playoff weekend with a little extra excitement — others have responded as if Roger Goodell decided to cancel football. Since the NFL is surely going to do nothing to quench the mass concern, I thought it would be a good idea to investigate alternative overtime options. Now before we get into it, I’m not going to listen to your super unique and creative solution of simply adopting college overtime rules. While this would be a satisfactory way to solve the problem, the NFL is not going to simply “copy” from an inferior league that doesn’t even pay its athletes. Yesterday I threw the following out on Twitter Youth Dallas Goedert Jersey , in hopes that the BGN faithful of the Twitterverse庐 would give me some fun ideas:I got some creative responses, and terrible ideas. Here are the ones I liked best, in no particular order:For those of you who aren’t aware of the phenomenon that is Indian Leg Wrestling, courtesy of some website I've never heard of called “SportsAspire”, it can be described as:Here is a live video of two people Indian Leg Wrestling. (Please note, I cannot confirm that one of these people is not Dave Mangels.)Now, depending on who was involved in the actual showdown, I have differing opinions. If it was Jared Goff and Tom Brady rubbing thighs, I don’t think I’d be interested in watching that sweat fest. If we’re talking Sean McVay and Bill Belichick, however, sign me the eff up. Also, if we could get Michael Kist and Ben Solak to have an Indian-Leg-Wrestling-Off live on youtube, who would watch?Shout out to Frank for predicting one of my original ideas. This would be such a blast. Imagine a penalty kick (soccer) or a shoot out (hockey) but done by non-kicker-NFL players?I’m thinking do 3 players to start, kicking from the extra point position, with no defense or offense on the field. Simply a man and a ball. The Patriots start things off, with Julian Edelman. The former performance-enhancing-druggie blasts the ball through the uprights. Up next is Jared Goff. A California pretty boy? Of course he knows how to kick a got-damn ball. He wiffs and barely clears the line of scrimmage. Would Tom “I can do anything” Brady take a shot? Would Sean McVay dress up in Todd Gurley’s uniform and take a swing himself? Who knows. What I do know, however http://www.eaglesfootballauthentics.com/darren-sproles-jersey-authentic , is this sounds fun.You know how the song goes... “Anything Chad Johnson Ocho-Cinco can do, I can do better”While this one sounds fun, it simply would result in a tie for all overtime games, since NO ONE can out drink Michael Kist in 15 minutes. If you think you can out drink Michael Kist in 15 minutes, please post a video of how much damage you can do in 15 minutes and tweet it directly at @BleedingGreen. We will decide if you’re even worthy of his time (which is hopefully going to be spent training for the Indian Leg Wrestling showdown).[Disclaimer: If you decide rapidly drink anything intoxicating for 15 minutes and send it to us, we are not responsible for your fate, but we will use the footage as we please since you willingly gave it to the internet.]Heres a fun one. Do you send your entire offensive line? Do you send a small quick player, like Darren Sproles, to run in circles until the enemy tires? Does anyone actually watch Sumo Wrestling? These are all questions I have, Chris. What I do know, is this would make one hell of an overtime.This reminds me of a game I played as a child. Almost like a team version of smear the... uhhh I better watch out or we’ll get banned from Patreon. So basically an all out brawl to pick up the ball and get it to the end zone. I’m sure this would result in a ton of injuries, a lot of dog piles, and a ton of frustrated fans. So basically, this option would leave us where we are currently.Simple but effective. Lets keep the rules the same, but take the chance out of it. Imagine Tug of War with 2 NFL offensive lines?A late addition from our friend Simon Chester (who keeps SB Nation up to date with the Pittsburgh Steelers over on Behind the Steel Curtain) is a good one. Thing start as usual. A coin toss. A bunch of angry fans who somehow think their team got gypped. 11 players on both sides. And as the clock runs down, both sides go from looking like an NFL team to a backyard football squad. Do you remove your skill players in lieu of offensive lineman? Do you rush the passer or drop your entire defense into the secondary? I like this one, Simon; I like it a lot. While these answers have been fun http://www.eaglesfootballauthentics.com/stefen-wisniewski-jersey-authentic , I have a few more ideas to throw into the hat. Current overtime rules, but with the offense and defense switchedExactly as it sounds, lets keep the rules the same, but switch the starting 11. I want to see Tom Brady play defense. I want to see Nickell Robey-Coleman lay down that truck stick in a legal situation. While the “fairness” would be no different than it currently is, the entertainment value would certainly go through the roof. Rochambeau between the opposing puntersGo ahead. Look me in the eyes. Tell me with a straight face that you don’t want to watch two grown-ass-men, who are professionals at swinging their leg in an upward motion, kick each other straight in the giblets. For those of you not familiar with the incredibly sadistic cousin of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, here is how urban dictionary defines it: In this scenario, in addition to a winning team and a losing team, there would be 2 distinct losers. Also, we’d all win. It’d be great.“Home Run Derby” style Field Goal-offI picture laying out 20 or so balls, in a 3-pt line arch around the field goal post. The kicker then has 2 minutes to get as many of those balls through the uprights as possible. Let the away kicker go first and the home kicker second. All balls would be set up already. Have we settled anything? Nope. Have we created some realistic scenarios for the NFL to evaluate this offseason? Sure haven’t. Have we had fun? I hope so. The NFL overtime is fine, people. Sunday was a once-in-a-lifetime Conference Championship Sunday when both games went to overtime. Instead of bitching about it, why don’t we take a moment to acknowledge how close and exciting both games were?