Not far from where the inflatable red and green truck that bears the name The Energy Truck stands, complete with a Tom Coughlin caricature behind the wheel, Victor Cruz begins talking about what it means for these Giants to defend the Lombardi Trophy.
The Giants and the Lombardi Trophy: Til Death Do They Part.
“It means a lot, it means a lot,” Cruz begins. “We understand that coming into the season, everybody was gunning for us because we’re the defending champs so, to defend it means everything.
“You want to keep that trophy under lock and key, and you don’t want anyone to try and come in and say they can take it from you or anything like that so, we just want to continue to fight for it and hopefully be hoisting another one up this year.”
I ask Cruz: “So what is it going to take to take this trophy away from this team?
“It’s going to take a lot,” he said. “It’s going to take them having to beat us down physically, mentally, everything for another team to take our trophy from us because we live and die by it, we understand how hard it was to get there, how hard it was to play in that game emotionally, physically, and it’s going to take a lot for people to take that from us.”
No one, of course, will be breaking in and taking the Super Bowl from the glass case inside the Timex Performance Center. But as this three-game season begins Sunday in Atlanta, with the Cowboys and Redskins very much alive, Cruz sees a champion culture and championship teammates in full-blown playoff mode.
“I think the switch has been flipped, and they understand exactly what it means to be hoisting that Lombardi and to be essentially defending your championship,” Cruz said.
Destiny is a matter of choice. The Giants choose to keep it in their hands. A palpable intensity manifests itself now in the meeting rooms and on the practice field.
“It’s more so on the practice field, you can see our attention to detail’s there, and we’re moving to the ball. We’re not being monotonous, being slow. We’re in and out of the huddle. We’re executing. We’re reading the coverages. … We understand everything that’s going on in front of us, even on a Day 1 of practice,” Cruz said. “You can see the movements and the momentum just being different throughout the practice.”
The Falcons would love to silence their many naysayers and avenge last year’s playoff loss to the Giants. But the Giants are fighting for the right to defend their trophy. The Falcons have already clinched the NFC South, and their season will be defined by whether they can finally get over the hump and win their first playoff game of the Mike Smith-Matt Ryan Era after three failures.
“You can see in our mindset that we have to be in playoff mode now,” Cruz said.
BackflipGate aside — general manager Jerry Reese and Justin Tuck aren’t doing back flips over his touchdown celebration — gamebreaking rookie David Wilson may have to carry the load if Ahmad Bradshaw is unable to will his way past a knee sprain.
“I think he’s going to do well,” Cruz said. “I think at this point, he’s no longer a rookie. He’s been in this offense 14 weeks now, and he gets it. So he understands exactly what’s asked of him, and it’s just a matter of putting it all together.”
It is no small thing that Wilson has benefitted from Bradshaw’s missed practice reps.
“He’s got a great feel for what’s going on,” Eli Manning said.
Manning, of course, is a nice fall-back option in case the Falcons run defense stops being an Achilles heel.
“Whenever things are going wrong,” Cruz said, “he’s always a guy to fix it and make it right.”
Hakeem Nicks may not be right, but Cruz hardly minds the comparisons with Falcon counterparts Roddy White and Julio Jones.
“We are tops in the league as a tandem,” Cruz said.
Coughlin’s call for greater energy following the bye makes The Energy Bus in the middle of the locker room all the more relevant. Lawrence Tynes purchased the display model on sale at Lowe’s for $155.
“We like to do silly, fun stuff like that, but Coach Coughlin really likes it because it’s team-oriented,” Steve Weatherford said, “and obviously he’s big on positive energy and etcetera, etcetera, so …”
Weatherford was asked how he would describe that Energy Bus.
“It’s an inflatable cement truck-looking thing, you know?” he said.
Has Coach Coughlin commented on it?
“He loves it, because it’s a team builder,” Weatherford said. “That’s kind of like our mantra right now, you know? ‘Get on the Energy Bus. There’s plenty of room for everybody.’ Let’s be positive with each other and try to put another run together.”
The Energy Bus has been there since before the Washington game. Weatherford coined it The Energy Bus.
“We just want everyone to kind of be on board, and play with great energy towards the stretch, and when we do that, I think we play better,” Tynes said. “It’s not undefeated, but I don’t feel like we played poorly in Washington.”
“For the last year, between me, Lawrence, Chase Blackburn and [Zak] DeOssie, we try to bring a lot of energy to practice,” Weatherford said. “I think people play well when they’re having fun, and that starts with having good, positive energy because there’s also negative energy as well.”
All aboard The Energy Bus, riding on the bridge Coughlin wants built to New Orleans.
“If we were just happy being Super Bowl champs from last year, then we wouldn’t put the effort into preparation and all those sorts of things that we do this year,” Weatherford said, “but with our destiny being in our own hands, all we got to do is win three games, then we get a chance to defend it.”
To the death.