You have to feel for all the Giants fans, for all the giants, maybe none other than Leonard Williams today.
You never want to join the roster of players who have never experienced the postseason, a roster that includes Archie Manning and Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers, and of course Ernie Banks, whose career spanned 19 seasons in the Hall of Fame Cubs.
Leonard Williams was in his second season with the Jets on the last Sunday of the 2016 regular season, when Ryan Fitzpatrick, who on Sunday had his own 16-season playoff drought, threw that opportunity at Buffalo.
But Heartbreak Hotel arrived Sunday around 11:30 pm for the Giants and for Leonard Williams, who had done everything in his power to try that elusive first playoff appearance in his six seasons of the season. The NFL, which had imposed its will on Andy Dalton and the Cowboys, had refused to let the Giants, winners 23-29, lose a game they could not lose by dreaming.
He dreams of a date with Tom Brady on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium.
And then that dream turned into an unthinkable, unimaginable, unconscious, and unforgivable nightmare on Sunday night, when Doug Pederson, with nothing to play for, played at not winning and eliminating the WFT.
He played to beat and eliminate the Giants 6-10.
BIRDS, WATERS, BIRDS.
“That’s why we don’t like eagles,” Eli Manning tweeted.
This was a bird trainer move with the NFC Least title on the line.
Pederson had already missed a field goal he would have made 17-17, but was left 17-14 for the WFT when Jalen Hurts threw incomplete in the end zone in the fourth and 4th.
It was now 12:35 and Pederson called up Nate Sudfeld to replace Hurts.
Nate Sudfeld, who had pitched 25 career passes, and towards this season.
And of course Sudfeld quickly threw an interception and lost the ball when he couldn’t get a low comeback from the center.
Williams ’prayers, the prayers of all Giants and Giants fans, would not be answered.
WFT 20, Eagles 14.
Wait until next year again.
Giants to Doug Pederson: Tanks for Nothing.
“I’ve never been in my career, and this is my sixth year in the league,” Williams said after the Giants had taken over the business. “So, I mean, it’s been a long time and it will be fun to play in a playoff game, especially with this team that has overcome so much. I feel we deserve it. “
Surely he deserved it with three Dalton sacks, two in the fourth quarter, dominating with the kind of play Lawrence Taylor and Michael Strahan would have recognized and understood, putting pressure on Dalton to intercept Xavier McKinney’s end zone in missing 1:15.
And no one should be surprised if it was Big Cat Williams who would have been the king of beasts if Wayne Gallman hadn’t made hearts burn before, after much indecision and dismay, it was decided that he had recovered his own fumble. at the bottom of a frantic mix shortly after.
Leonard Williams kept an unlikely dream alive for about eight hours.
But no more.
Williams deserves his big payday after a season (11.5 career sacks) in which he should have won a Pro Bowl bid and vindicated the dubious trade of Giants general manager Dave Gettleman with the Jets for the third round pick in 2020 and fifth round in 2021 in the middle of the 2019 season.
Whether Gettleman remains GM or not, Joe Judge should back up his flattering postgame words and find a way to keep Williams, working in the $ 16.126 billion, one-year-old, blue franchise.
“We love him in the building, he’s a great teammate, it’s fun to train,” the judge said. “It makes it a lot easier for you to come to work and enjoy your job, but you also play on the field, because the players make the coaches good or not. You can’t be a good coach with bad players, that’s a reality. , and he’s a good player, so he makes us all look so much better. We needed to play plays from him, he definitely increased and, look, he’s been a marvel to coach. “
Gettleman got the heat for the deal, because the 2019 Giants were in the midst of another rebuilding season and weren’t going anywhere fast, and Williams had gotten less than the sixth overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft.
“The juice was worth it,” Gettleman said late last season.
There was a lot of Williams juice in a day that the giants had to pull out to the last drop.
“I definitely saw a lot of criticism, hatred and stuff like that in the press, the media and the fans,” Williams said. “I think it’s good to try them badly and also show why Dave Gettleman risked me. It feels good to show him that it was the right choice.
In the first half, Williams recorded one of his sacks and faced Dalton behind the first downhill with a third and 10 up the center.
He saved the best for the fourth quarter, when the big players are at their best.
Third and eighth in midfield, Giants 20, Cowboys 19, Williams dismisses Dalton.
And then: 1:53 left, Dalton just 7 yards from the Big Blue end zone, 7 yards from potentially breaking the Giants’ unlikely dream.
And Leonard Williams fired Dalton at 17 years old.
As a Jet, Williams recorded only 17 sacks in 70 starts. Gettleman saw a 25-year-old with a tall, enduring character who could be disruptive by defending his career and cheering on the quarterback. Williams could have raised $ 17.8 million if they classified it as a defensive end rather than a defensive attack, and his first season of double-digit sacks will only whet more appetite.
“I feel like an elite group of guys who have been in that category of double-digit sacks,” Williams said, “and it feels good.”
He reiterated that the search for a monster payday has never been his motivation.
“It’s never been about the money,” Williams said, “I think I wanted more respect and to show the guys why I’m in that league.”
He turned 26 in June. The best is yet to come for Leonard Williams. Not next week against Tom Brady.
Birds, eagles, birds.