IN and around Giants Stadium, a Red Storm is brewing.
Clad in their red jerseys, the surging Giants believe they are ready to sweep the Cowboys out to sea in tomorrow’s King of the NFC Hill showdown and shock that part of the world that views them more as pretenders than contenders.
Linebacker Antonio Pierce can see it and hear it and feel it everywhere he turns, especially in the way the Giants have practiced all week … especially on his side of the ball.
“Faster; probably our fastest we could practice all year, as far as defensively,” he said. “We got guys flying to the ball … it looked like we were in minicamp almost, when guys first get out there and everybody’s running to the ball … it looks like a training tape almost.”
He sees and hears it and feels it inside the meeting rooms.
“Everybody’s a lot more attentive to detail – looking at more film, asking more questions in meetings – guys normally ask questions in meetings but … certain questions: being more exact, being more to the point,” he said. “By [Thursday] we had guys already kinda calling out plays and knowing formations and stuff, which is very key for us.”
Pierce was told that must give him a confident, optimistic feeling.
“Of course; it’d be different if we had eight guys or four guys doing it, you know?” he said. “But we got all 11, and then you got your backups coming in and doing it. That lets you know that everybody understands what’s at stake this week.”
I asked him when was the last time he saw this team this ready for a game.
“Probably the Washington game, 36-0, two years ago, [following the death of Wellington Mara],” he says.
The sign that greets the Giants when they enter their locker room reads “Have Something to Prove.” The Giants will try to prove they can beat a big team in a big game, try to prove they belong in any Super Bowl conversation.
“When you get 53 guys having something to prove,” Pierce said, “you got a nasty group there. Then when you got a team that is coming to your place and they’re favored, and they’re the top dogs and that’s what you want – what else can you say but have something to prove?
“Right now it’s four teams with better records than us [two in the NFC]; we’re the fifth team … if we keep going the way we’re going, are we a team that deserves to get a bye week and be favored later on in the playoffs, or are we a team that, every week you don’t know what you’re gonna get?
“I think we’re gonna get a team that’s gonna play with so much energy and fire that it’s gonna shock a lot of people.”
Why would it shock a lot of people?
“Because I don’t think they’ve ever seen us play this way,” he said.
Meaning?
“The fire and energy that we’re gonna play with,” he says.
How can you be that confident?
“The way we practice; we’ve done it every day,” Pierce said. “It’s not an overconfidence, it’s not an arrogance thing, it’s a belief. We believe we’re a good team.”
Will the Cowboys be surprised by this fire and energy?
“No; I expect them to come out the same way,” Pierce said. “It’s just who’s gonna have more, who’s gonna have it for 60 minutes? If you’re talking about just the beginning of the game, we go out there and we shoot our guns off and then by the fourth quarter we’re shooting blanks. I’m talking about 60 … 61 minutes of it.”
Sixty-one?
“I always say 61; I always play through the whistle,” he said.
Pierce has to play Me and My Shadow with Marion [The Barbarian] Barber. Big Red’s fearsome foursome must keep Tony Romo, so dangerous on the run, in the pocket. “We need to make sure he’s got some concrete in his feet,” Pierce says.
How ready are the Giants?
“About 90 percent,” Pierce said. “If we do what we did in practice all week, we’ll be OK, we’ll give Giants fans something to remember.”
Come Sunday at 4:15, how ready will this team be?
“100 percent,” Pierce said.
“101 percent.”