Giants know preseason vibes mean nothing without results: 'We've got to go do it'

Pat Leonard, New York Daily News on Sep 3, 2025

Published in Football

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NEW YORK — There is more optimism inside the Giants‘ building than there has been in a while.

The positive vibes are real coming out of an undefeated preseason with a league-high 107 points scored in three games.

But none of that matters on Sunday if the Giants don’t beat the Washington Commanders at Northwest Stadium.

That’s the message Brian Daboll is trickling down to his team: It’s put up or shut up time.

“I have a lot of confidence in our guys,” Daboll said. “But again, we have to go out there and do it.”

Doing it would mean winning a season opener for the first time since 2023. Daboll’s Giants have lost their last two Week 1 games by a combined score of 68-6.

Russell Wilson spoke in lock step with the coach on Wednesday.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to go do it,” he said.

But there is an undercurrent of tightness and pressure to the optimism as the Giants’ first real game draws near.

Daboll won’t give an inch, refusing to speak about his depth chart, the winners of position battles at corner and right guard — anything resembling a football-related detail.

“That’ll all come out on Sunday,” Daboll said at the start of the week.

The clear implication is that Daboll believes those details might be used by Commanders coach Dan Quinn for competitive advantage purposes in Sunday’s game.

What it comes across as, though, is trepidation, concern and focus on the wrong things.

It’s reminiscent of Bill Belichick screwing with NFL scouts this weekend by printing an empty depth chart for North Carolina’s season opener — and then losing 48-14 to TCU.

Daboll, of course, came up under Belichick in New England before eventually making a name for himself as Josh Allen’s offensive coordinator in Buffalo. So it’s not hard to trace the influence to his tactics.

Belichick has won six Super Bowls, though. Daboll has a 9-25 record in the past two seasons and is coming off a 3-14 year in 2024.

Wilson is being thrust toward the media in a calculated manner as the face of the team and the primary reason for new hope in Week 1.

Wilson gets his own solo press conference before the Giants’ locker room even opens for the rest of the team on Wednesdays. It’s odd how much the franchise is deferring to a player on a one-year contract and his fourth team in five years.

Rookie Jaxson Dart, the most exciting player in the building, suddenly must take a public back seat. Jameis Winston, who didn’t get a chance to compete for the starting or backup jobs, is an afterthought in the team’s on-field plans.

GM Joe Schoen raved recently about Wilson’s leadership impact.

“As far as Russell, the leadership’s been tremendous from the minute he walked in the building, not just on offense or in the quarterback room but across the entire team,” Schoen said.

But Wilson’s leadership so far has been a lot like this Giants team heading into Week 1: all talk without results to back it up.

On Wednesday, for example, Wilson continued to talk about abstract concepts like team “bonding” and compared the constant practice of his deep ball to when “you see Steph Curry shoot a thousand shots.”

Bonding won’t save Daboll’s job, though. Winning will. And comparing oneself to the greatest shooter in NBA history, well, some may call that leadership. Others might call it something else.

The fact is the Giants have talked a lot. They’ve had Wilson talk a lot for them. Daboll is reluctant to talk much at all as the pressure mounts heading into Sunday.

That’s because he’s well aware of the stakes if he is unable to get at least one win in the Giants’ first two games against the Commanders and Dallas Cowboys in division.

“We got to go beat Washington,” defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said.

That’s the only thing that will carry the preseason optimism into games that matter. Otherwise, the tone of all that talk will start to change.

Thomas still uncertain

Giants franchise left tackle Andrew Thomas (limited, foot) was the only player on the injury report Wednesday. Commanders defensive end Dorance Armstrong (knee), wideout Noah Brown (knee) and corner Jonathan Jones (hamstring) were limited.

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