The Giants’ secondary had a big day against Carolina, holding them to 144 total passing yards and intercepting Sam Darnold in the second quarter.
They, like the rest of the team, heard the boos, saw the fans leaving, and heard from head coach Joe Judge how Panthers coach Matt Rhule was willing to run the ball right down the Giants’ throats, meaning the front seven was going to have to step up.
But it was one particular thing Logan Ryan heard that motivated him.
“You hear it, and I wish my results were perfect, but not everything is personal – but I heard a guy in the tunnel say he paid $5,000 for a PSL, and I feel that,” Ryan said. “You hear that man…this is our house, our fans pay good money. I want to give him his money's worth. You just don't let teams come in here and say they're going to do this to you and do that to you.
We definitely heard about it, but it was a lot to take personal with how it's been, so to us, we just had to play with a certain type of identity and dominant defense is great way to start.”
Usually, that kind of outside noise is something Ryan tries to block out.
“In professional sports, you play week in and week out, it goes good and it goes bad. This society, just in general, where we're at with technology, you're going to hear things, you're going to see things. You're going to hear how it goes and you want to give the fans something to cheer for,” Ryan said. “You want to have good results, you want to, honestly, be rewarded for your work.”
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But as for that notion from Rhule?
“I love Matt Rhule to death, I respected Temple when he was there and he's a great coach, but he talked about them establishing their identity and running the ball 33 times to figure out who they are, and they just got to do it next week,” Ryan said. “They couldn't establish it against us. They're a good organization over there, but I just think it wasn't happening today just on some of our mindset and making the game simpler, simplicity and willing it to happen.”
Ryan noted that it finally all came together for the Giants on Sunday, and the D was proud to finally click in a game where they knew the offense was once again short-handed.
“It’s one win, but it feels good because we prepared hard, and it was kind of an identity game for us; wasn’t perfect, some stuff we have to clean up schematically, but it was pretty good,” Ryan said. “Like I told you guys time and time again, it wasn't for lack of effort and lack of work, it just wasn't coming together and today it came together for us as team. We found a way to win.
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And it made him even prouder to be as dominant as the defense was, hounding Carolina and holding them out of the end zone – although, as Ryan put forth, he was actually upset the Giants’ defense didn’t outscore the Panthers.
“We talk about pride and I have a lot of pride and this defense has a lot of pride and this area has a lot of pride. When people say you're not playing with pride, that's just inexcusable. You shouldn't even allow that to be questioned,” Ryan said. “I think today, no matter what was going to happen, we wanted to outscore them personally. I was mad we didn't beat them – it was 3-2, their offense versus our defense in points. We really wanted to outscore them. It just came out of pride and kind of the way you do it. Same plays, same defense, same X's and O's, not everything was magic drawn up in the dirt. It was just playing with more pride and passion and let that energy lift the team.”
And now, something to build on for Ryan, who will likely expound more on Tuesday when he joins Moose & Maggie for the weekly Giants Report.
“Now we have our way, and now we just got to try to replicate that with a great week of practice this next week.”
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