NEW YORK – Last weekend, when the New York Giants weren't playing a game, safety Ryan Mundy had an opportunity to visit with some of his old Pittsburgh Steelers teammates who were in town to play the Jets.
"It was," Mundy said with a wry smile, "the fellowship of the miserable."
That's because at the time of their quick get-together for a Saturday evening dinner, neither Mundy's Giants nor his buddies' Steelers had won a game. The following day, Pittsburgh rectified that situation, beating the Jets, leaving just three winless teams in the NFL.
Sunday, two of them — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Jacksonville Jaguars — continued losing. The third? They Giants their chance Monday night.
The Giants started the season with dreams about first. First place in the NFC East. First team to play a home Super Bowl. First players to win three Lombardi Trophies in franchise history. Now, after six fruitless weeks of the regular season, they are just trying to avoid being last. As in the last team to chalk up a victory.
Twenty-nine other teams already have jumped into the pool and splashed around in the joy and relief that comes with a win. The Giants remain in dry dock, yearning for a chance to cannonball into the win column waters. And they are getting desperate.
"Even if it's by one point, even if it's at the last second, even if it's lucky, even if the refs blow the game, as long as we get a win; we just need it right now," cornerback Terrell Thomas said. "It's just becoming a habit that we need to stop."
Facing one of the weakest teams on their schedule and a quarterback, Josh Freeman, making his debut for the Vikings might be just the thing to make the Giants go cold turkey.
"Hopefully, it'll be this week," defensive tackle Linval Joseph said. "Everybody feels confident about it. I think Monday is going to be the first win."
For a couple of weeks during this losing streak, the Giants could honestly look at the division standings and envision themselves making up the ground they were ceding. But they came into this weekend three games behind the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles with no way to get closer because those teams played each other. With the Cowboys' 17-3 victory Sunday, a win would leave the Giants three games back. A loss would make the deficit four with nine games to play.
Not that they are even thinking about those standings anymore. That was a crutch at 0-3, at 0-4. Now, at 0-6, even the most optimistic of the Giants is taking a much more myopic view of the situation.
"Are we still playoff bound? Who knows?" safety Antrel Rolle said. "That's not the most important thing right now. The most important thing right now is coming together as a team and focusing on getting a win. Everything else will take care of itself."
