LANDOVER, Md. — This used to be a blood-grudge rivalry — Harry Carson standing defiant near the line of scrimmage, sneering at the Hogs and waiting there for John Riggins … Lawrence Taylor tormenting Joe Jacoby and raging at Joe Theismann and sadly breaking his leg on national television … Bill Parcells soaking in the sounds of silence as he walked triumphantly out of a hushed RFK Stadium.
What we got between the Giants and Redskins on Thanksgiving night was an ugly, turkey-trot snoozefest between two banged-up NFC East rivals going nowhere, other than the slaughterhouse.
The 2-9 New York Football Giants:
Turkeys again.
Lame Old Giants.
Two teams, and specifically two offenses, that were fit to be tied. And yes, bound and gagged.
Tryptophan coma, everyone?
Or Giants-Redskins in 2017.
If you slept through this one, more power to you.
If Ben McAdoo is lucky, John Mara and Steve Tisch slept through it.
The only thing missing from Redskins 20, Giants 10 was a good old-fashioned Buttfumble to sum up the festivities and maybe awaken everyone in the place.
A comedy of errors on both sides, only no one was laughing in the funereal visiting locker room.
Eli Manning is at the wheel of a broken-down Edsel, and he’s driving it erratically.
He looked afterward like someone stole his dog.
The lost playmakers and offensive linemen have dragged him down.
He was asked if all the losing tires him out emotionally.
“Yeah, yeah, it definitely does,” Manning said. “It’s no fun losing, it’s no fun not scoring enough points offensively, so yeah, it can wear you out. It’ll test you. But you just gotta keep going to the drawing board and find ways to play better and move the ball and score some points.”
McAdoo, asked what he thought of his offense overall, said: “Wasn’t very good.”
Kirk Cousins hit Josh Doctson with a 14-yard touchdown pass against Jackrabbit Jenkins with 3:31 left, and it was Redskins 17, Giants 10.
Manning (13-for-27, 113 yards, one interception) would have needed at least another four quarters to tie it.
He was sacked on fourth down and Ereck Flowers — him again — was flagged for holding anyway.
This is when they began singing “Hail to the Redskins,” but they could just as well have sung “Fail to the Giants.”
The Redskins had finally broken through when Cousins scrambled to his right and found Jamison Crowder with a 15-yard touchdown pass on third-and-goal in the third quarter.
That made it 10-3. It felt like 100-3.
The Giants’ offense: 3 yards and a cloud of dysfunction.
So McAdoo and Manning needed Jenkins’ 53-yard pick-six on a high Cousins pass that deflected off Byron Marshall to tie it, of course.
“He gave that spark that we needed,” Jason Pierre-Paul said.
There were no more sparks.
The Giants defense played hard, improving its consecutive game streak to two.
The Giants offense (2-for-14 on third down) played hardly. For the umpteenth time in the McAdoo Era.
Mini-McAdoo was in the stands, ending speculation he had entered the witness protection program.
McAdoo needed this game because he needs every game now. He can’t save his job with a 2-14 record.
Every last game now is a referendum on his future, and on general manager Jerry Reese’s as well.
McAdoo needed to keep an unrelenting grip on the throat of his team and show it how a leader laughs in the face of adversity and does not waver in the eye of the storm.
He needed to show ownership, remind ownership, that a young head coach can lose his way and lose his team and just when everyone counted him out and scorned him, he could find his way and find his team again.
He needed a team that responded to him and remembered what New York Giants Pride meant.
He needed his players to band together and fight, the way Giants used to fight, for each other, and for New York.
So they fought.
The problem is, they can’t punch.
Manning was forced to throw to the likes of Roger Lewis, Tavarres King and Travis Rudolph, forced to operate behind offensive linemen named Halapio and Wheeler.
Rookie Chad Wheeler was schooled twice for first-half sacks by Ryan Kerrigan. Kerrigan then drew a holding penalty against Flowers.
Even Evan Engram, Manning’s only real weapon, dropped three balls he should have caught.
“There’s no excuses,” Engram said. “I gotta get better.”
McAdoo, desperate to light a fire, or at least a flame, under his frozen team, went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Redskins’ 21 midway through the second quarter and got it, but Manning, third-and-3 from the 12, overthrew an open Shane Vereen in the right flat, and it was 3-0, soon to be 3-3 at intermission.
“I gotta hit Shane on that,” Manning said. “Thought I had to throw a little bit sooner than I wanted to, tried to kinda float it up there for him where he can maybe adjust and get to it but just put a little bit too much on it.”
Turkeys again.