The Giants aren’t America’s Team, but to former Big Blue pass rusher Osi Umenyiora, they are a lot like America now…and that’s not a good thing.
“I look at the Giants I think the same way I look at America. I think I look at the Giants with a lot of fond memories, but then I’m like what the hell happened?” Umenyiora told Paul Schwartz and Lawrence Tynes in an appearance on the New York Post’s Blue Rush podcast. “It’s some absolute craziness going on there right now.”
The 0-4 Giants are in danger of a fourth straight losing season, and the team has played just one playoff game since winning Super Bowl XLVI almost a decade ago – a 38-13 thrashing by Green Bay in the Wild Card Round after the 2016 season.
Umenyiora, who was the Giants’ second-round pick in 2003, was with the team through 2012, and was part of both of Big Blue’s Super Bowl runs. Those teams also won three division titles, but their 2011 crown en route to their second win over the Patriots is the Giants’ last.
“To think that in the past eight seasons, they have had one winning record (2016)…it just doesn’t make any sense for a team with that kind of pride and with that kind of history,” he said. “With what we had done the eight years prior to that, it’s really unfortunate, man. But in some form or fashion they have almost lost their way. They have lost their identity. Like, what is the New York Giants’ identity right now? I couldn’t even tell you what it is.”
That wasn’t a problem in his day.
“We were hard-nosed, we were a physical team, we would grind it out, and then defensively we would bludgeon you,” Umenyiora said. “Offensively, that offensive line, they were a strong, powerful unit. And they were creating holes. We were running the ball. Eli Manning was an outstanding quarterback. We had a great kicker (Tynes). This was the Giants’ identity. And now it’s like I couldn’t even tell you what it is. I don’t know what they are as a football team and how that happened, how that transpired…I will never really understand.”
And according to Osi, who is now an NFL commentator for BBC Sport in his native London, the solution is “a story all in itself.”
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