Memo to the Giants: It’s never a good idea to tear a page out of the Jets playbook.
Case in point: The lead-up to Sunday’s season-crushing 24-21 loss to the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium — a defeat that was sealed by a 35-yard Dan Bailey field goal as time expired on the game and surely on the Giants’ playoff hopes.
The game was prefaced by a week’s worth of uncharacteristic bold talk from the Giants — Jets’ style — capped by a Terrell Thomas guarantee of victory to close the week with a bang.
This all began last Sunday inside the Giants’ euphoric winning locker room minutes after their 27-13 win over the Packers at MetLife Stadium. It was their fourth consecutive victory after an 0-6 start, their playoff hopes had a palpable heartbeat and the division-rival Cowboys were next up.
Some of the Giants players were so amped up from the win bold words began flowing.
“We’re going to put it on them, man,” Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said. “There’s going to be a lot of blood spilled out there.”
There was, indeed, blood spilled out there — Giants’ blue blood. Because the loss leaves their playoff chances in significant peril, with a 4-7 record (1-3 in the NFC East), two full games behind the Eagles and Cowboys (who hold the tiebreaker over the Giants) with five games to play.
As it turned out, Pierre-Paul’s words were merely the appetizer to those that Thomas, the Giants cornerback, delivered in a SiriusXM NFL Radio interview on Friday when he said, “No doubt we’re going to win this game. You can tell them, put it on a bulletin board.’’
Then, speaking to Steve Serby in Sunday’s Post, receiver Victor Cruz detailed reasons why the Giants would win the game, closing with: “I see us exhausted in the locker room after a hard-fought victory.’’
When asked after the game if he thought all the talk was out of character for the Giants, Cruz, who lost a fumble that was returned for Dallas’ first touchdown, said, “We’re a confident bunch. We believe in our talent and we like to voice that whenever we feel it’s true.’’
Who did the Giants think they were? The pre-John Idzik Rex Ryan Jets?
“They have a great coach [Tom Coughlin]. I have no earthly idea why he let them talk like that this week,’’ Cowboys cornerback Orlando Scandrick said. “They talked and they talked and they talked. I’ve never heard a team that was 4-6 talk like that.’’
Thomas, explaining his pregame words, said, “Obviously, it was my fault. I could have said it a little bit better. But at the end of the day, that’s how I felt in the moment and we needed to win this game, because our season was on the line. So it really didn’t matter what we said to them, because we had to win. If we motivated them, so be it. We had our chances, we shot ourselves in the foot.’’
Scandrick went out of his way to tweak Pierre-Paul, too, saying, “Jason Pierre-Paul was like, ‘There will be bloodshed.’ Did he even record a stat on the final stat sheet?’’
For the record, Pierre-Paul, who was coming off his best game of the season a week ago when he returned an interception for a touchdown, was credited with one solo tackle and he had no sacks or quarterback pressures.
“We don’t like them and they don’t like us,’’ Pierre-Paul said. “We shoot back at them and they shoot back at us. It wasn’t like it was out of character. That’s the fun end of football.’’
It’s not so fun being 4-7 and on life support in the playoff race. Not when the Giants offense struggled to score touchdowns against a Dallas defense that entered the game having allowed 103 points and yielded 1,641 yards in the previous three games.
So in the end, the Giants’ pregame words proved to be as empty as so many of those Rex Ryan guarantees that went as bad as 30-day-old milk left in the fridge.
Bold talk is always fun. Everybody loves it. The problem with it is it sets you up for failure. Ask the Jets.