Giants DB Logan Ryan Sends Strong Message to Overreactions Towards 0-3 Start

Joe Judge said it best on Sunday night following his team’s 17-14 aggravating loss to the Atlanta Falcons in MetLife Stadium when posed a question about the negative reactions the organization–all the way up to ownership–received throughout the afternoon. New York is always going to be a tough, demanding place to play in and a market where everything is earned and no pats on the back are given freely. 

“It’s New York, it’s supposed to be a tough place to play right? Isn’t that the nature of where we’re at right now,” Judge said. “People demand excellence because we’re in the biggest market, so that’s what we have to work to give them.” 

“It’s our job to entertain them and give them something to cheer about.”

While the Giants leader understands that when things go south in New York–particularly when his team is 6-13 under his tenure and riding along the bottom of the league in many statistical categories–it is only natural that the constituency they represent will commence chatter and overreact, there’s a player in his locker room not willing to buy into that part of the message. 

Logan Ryan believes that all the noise coming from the New York market–the talking heads in swivel chairs on sports talk radio specifically–is simply put, huge overreactions. Such to a team that has more talent and capability to turn things around than people are giving them credit for. 

On Tuesday, the Giants veteran defensive back made an appearance on WFAN’s mid-morning show “Moose and Maggie” as part of his weekly segment with the network to discuss the state of the Giants team amid another 0-3 start to the season. Ryan, previously a member of the Titans and Patriots and a two-time Super Bowl champion with the latter, was asked by one of the co-hosts whether he felt the Giants were close to winning games like his preceding teams.

After a few seconds of silence, the Rutgers product proceeded to give a slightly heated response, calling out the media and New York fanbase for being trigger happy in wanting to overanalyze the organization’s situation, sell off everything, and jump ship on the season. 

“We lost a game by a last second field goal,” Ryan said. “That’s close, that’s the definition of close.”

Ryan tried to make his case to the hosts and their listeners by looking back to the teams he previously played for and noting how a couple of those seasons had to go from rags to conference or Super Bowl championship riches. 

“You guys always said ‘I’m on good teams’, when I was on the Tennessee Titans we were 2-4. They were going to trade the whole team, they were trading Derrick Henry, they were trading me, get rid of the ship…then we went to the AFC Championship.”

“In New England, I was 2-2 and two of those years I won a Super Bowl,” Ryan added. “You guys have been telling me that I’ve been on good teams my entire career, that’s not always how it starts. 

For the Giants, no season has started well since 2016–the year New York went 11-5 and made an appearance in the NFC Wild Card game–and that campaign has been the only one of the last decade’s worth to finish with a winning record. The team has started eight of their last nine seasons, including the past five straight, at 0-2, and the 0-3 mark becomes the third season in the last five that the Giants have started with that record. 

The early-season hole combined with the trend of the Giants losing games by a handful of poorly executed plays has completely frustrated the fanbase and put everyone on notice, including co-owner and CEO John Mara. Last Sunday, the longtime Giants patriarch was blasted with boos during his introduction of former quarterback Eli Manning for the halftime ceremony commemorating Manning’s jersey retirement and induction into the Giants’ Ring of Honor. The episode was the first time that the fanbase publicly directed their displeasure at ownership in a live setting, and it took the players having to come to the defense of their team leaders to quell the noise.

Two weeks prior, in the Giants’ home opener against the Denver Broncos, a 27-13 loss, droves of fans were seen heading for the exits of MetLife Stadium with over six minutes left in the fourth quarter. It was a sight that immediately caught the attention of the team and added to the misery of losing another season opener to a less talented offense. 

It’s nearing the point where the Giants faithful are ready to jump ship and embrace a season of building for the draft, but Logan Ryan is not ready to join the party. Instead, his plea is for the fans to stick with his team, believe in the culture that’s growing in East Rutherford, and trust the veteran leaders like himself to motivate the younger players to improve and find ways to win each week. 

“I don’t know why we didn’t win those three games,” Ryan said. “I don’t know. But I’m still encouraged enough…until you guys move me out of New York, I’m gonna believe and I’m gonna work hard, and I’m gonna encourage other people to do that. Even when things don’t go your way, so what? Are you gonna quit?”

“Even in the Giants teams that won Super Bowls, it wasn’t always great in the beginning. I understand it’s been frustrating through the years, but what you need are guys like me that can make a difference in the game, that can make the Giants fans smile, and just believe. And I do believe,”

No decent person will bash Logan Ryan for defending his teammates, coaches, and leadership in the heat of the moment against an overtly critical group of doubters in the media, but it’s hard for the other side to buy into the big picture of an unusual 17-game season due to what the history books say.

Browse the NFL history books, and you’ll find that an 0-3 start to the season is a near guarantee of packing the bags to play golf by early January. According to Odds Shark, only 3.4% (6-of 176) of teams since 1980 to start their season 0-3 have gone on to make the playoffs. While there was an outlier in the 2020 Houston Texans who started 0-3 before making a run to the playoffs, that was the first time an NFL team accomplished that feat since the 1998 Buffalo Bills. 

If you were to flip the record to 3-0, just ahead of the 2-1 record the Giants could have had if they lost their mistake-ridden habits, the probability jumps to 75.5% of teams making the playoffs in the same 40-year span. 

Additionally, the Giants have the hardest strength of schedule in the league through the remainder of the season, according to NFL prognosticators. Their upcoming schedule features dances with New Orleans, Dallas, the LA Rams, Carolina, and the Super Bowl LV runner-ups in Kansas City. Not to mention another Monday night primetime meeting with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

The story of the Giants’ 2021 season is not looking like it will brighten up any time soon, and the obstacles and injury woes have begun piling up on them, putting pressure on much younger, inexperienced players to take on some of the best veterans in the league. Logan Ryan and his teammates will need to do more than just compare themselves to past teams that struck gold late, they must make the necessary adjustments on the fly, even in games, to strike their own success and have any chance to turn things around before the attention in New York shifts to the incoming basketball season. 

Give the Giants till Week 5 to quell the noise, but if things don’t change by then, it might be time for Ryan and company to question if the overreactions are really just that.

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