You have to feel for every Giants fan, every Giant, maybe no one more than today.
You never want to part with the list of players who have never experienced the post-season, a list that includes Archie Manning and Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers, and of course Ernie Banks, whose career in Hall of Fame Cubs over 19 seasons stretch.
Leonard Williams was in his second season with the Jets on the last Sunday of the 2016 season when Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had his own play-off drought extended to 16 seasons on Sunday, threw away the chance in Buffalo.
But Heartbreak Hotel showed up Sunday at 11:30 p.m. for the Giants and for Leonard Williams, who did everything in his power to taste the elusive first playoff game of his six NFL seasons, which she wants on Andy Dalton and the Cowboys, who denied that the Giants, 23-19 winners, lost a game they could not lose.
Dreaming of a date with Tom Brady on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium.
And then that dream becomes an unimaginable, unimaginable, unscrupulous, unforgivable nightmare Sunday night when Doug Pederson, with nothing to play for, plays to not beat and eliminate the WFT.
He played to beat and eliminate the 6-10 Giants.
FEEL, EAGLES, FEEL
“That’s why we do not like the Eagles,” tweeted Eli Manning.
It was a coaching session for the Birds with the NFC-least title at stake.
Pederson had already conceded a chippie field goal that would make it 17-17, but he remained 17-14 for the WFT when Jalen Hurts incompletely threw in the final zone at fourth-and-4th.
Now 12:35 left and Pederson called Nate Sudfeld to replace Hurts.
Nate Sudfeld, who has 25 careers, and not one this season.
And of course, Sudfeld immediately threw an interception and lost the ball when he could not catch a low shot from the middle.
Williams’ prayers, the prayers of all fans of Giants and Giants, would not be answered.
WFT 20, Arende 14.
Wait again until next year.
Giants for Doug Pederson: Tanks for nothing.
“I’ve never been in my career, and this’s my sixth year in the league,” Williams said after the Giants did business. ‘I mean, it’s been a long time coming, and it’s going to be fun to play in a playoff game, especially with this team that has been overcome so much. I feel we deserve it. ”
He definitely deserved it with three bags of Dalton, two in the fourth quarter, dominating with the kind of games that Lawrence Taylor and Michael Strahan would have recognized and understood, and finally Dalton in the Xzone McKinney’s end zone interception with 1 : 15 rushed.
And no one should have been surprised if it was Big Cat Williams who would have been the king of the beasts if Wayne Gallman had not made the hearts roar before, after much indecision and consternation, it was decided that he whispered his own at the end of a frantic scrum shortly thereafter.
Leonard Williams kept an unlikely dream alive for about eight hours.
But not anymore.
Williams earned his big payday after a season – a career-high 11.5 bags – in which he had to earn a Pro Bowl bid and Giants general manager Dave Gettleman had to justify himself with the Jets for a third round in 2020 and a halfway point in the 2019 season in 2021 in the fifth series.
Whether Gettleman remains the GM or not, Joe Judge must back up his flattering words after the time and find a way to keep Williams, with the $ 16,126 million franchise label, blue for a year.
“We love him in the building, he’s an excellent teammate, he’s fun to coach,” Judge said. ‘He makes your job much easier when you come to work and enjoy your job, but then also play on the field, because players really make coaches or not. You can not be a good coach with bad players, that’s kind of the reality of it, and he’s a good player, so he makes us all look a lot better. We had to get plays from him, he definitely acted and watched, he was an explosion to coach. ”
Gettleman got heat for the deal because the 2019 Giants were in the midst of another rebuilding season and went nowhere fast, and Williams scored the sixth overall pick of the 2015 NFL draft.
“The juice was worth the pressure,” Gettleman said at the end of last season.
There was a lot of juice from Williams on a day that the Giants had to squeeze every last drop out of him.
“I’ve definitely seen a lot of the criticism and the hate and stuff like that in the press, in the media and through the fans,” Williams said. ‘It feels good to prove them wrong and also to show why Dave Gettleman took a chance on me. It feels good to show him that it was the right choice. ”
In the first half, Williams scored one of his pockets and tackled Dalton from behind, short of the first, on a third-and-10 scramble in the middle.
He saved his best for the fourth quarter, when big players are at their best.
Third-and-8 in midfield, Giants 20, Cowboys 19, Williams bag Dalton.
And then: 1:53 left, Dalton is only 7 yards from the Big Blue finish zone, 7 yards from the potential to break the Giants’ unlikely dream.
And Leonard Williams fired Dalton on the 17th.
As an aircraft, Williams started recording only 17 bags in 70. Gettleman saw a durable, then-25-year-old man who could be disruptive in defending the run and buzzing the quarterback. Williams could raise $ 17.8 million if he were classified as a defensive end rather than a defensive attack, and his first double-digit saxophone season would only whet his appetite.
“I feel like it’s an elite group of guys who were in the double-digit pocket category,” Williams said, “and it feels good.”
He reiterated that the pursuit of a sample payday has never been his motivation.
“It was never about the money,” Williams said.
He turned 26 in June. The best is yet to come for Leonard Williams. Just not next week against Tom Brady.
Chicken, Eagles, chicken.