Giants Atrocious, Nephew Precocious

Monday, September 27, 2010 |

It would be very easy for me to go negative here, to dwell on what an absolute horrorshow the Giants loss to the Titans was. I could work myself into a lather over the eleven penalties the Giants committed, six of them of the fifteen-yard personal variety. I could waste 2,000 words fixating angrily on the two turnovers near the goal line, the generally atrocious run blocking, the missed field goal, the chop-block safety. I could use this space to blast the Giants for playing perhaps their most undisciplined game of the Tom Coughlin era one week after being humiliated on national television, for losing--rather decisively--a game in which they outgained their opponent by 200 yards, mostly because they couldn't keep their heads. It's a post that could almost write itself. 

But I am choosing, instead, to look past the Giants infuriating performance this afternoon and to keep things, at least for this week, in perspective. Because as frustrating as the game itself might have been for me, I got to spend it with my eight-year-old nephew, The Old Man, and my brother-in-law. I got to participate in a tri-generational Nerf toss in the parking lot and to eat a sleazy bacon cheeseburger I cooked myself. I got to tour the Giants Legacy Club before the game and to teach my nephew, an inquisitive, cheerful kid growing up a Giants fan in Redskins country, a little bit about Giants history. As an added bonus, I got to see one of my all-time favorite Giants in the flesh as we were walking into the stadium. I took it as a sign.

That isn't to say that I'm okay with what transpired down on the field today. I'm not, and no Giants fan should be. It also isn't any sort of indication that I'm mellowing, or that I won't blow a gasket next week if the Giants lay another egg on Sunday Night. All it means is that for one day the outcome of the football game, as disappointing as it was, was secondary to me to the gameday experience. 

Games will be won and games will be lost. Some weeks we will exit the stadium exhilirated and other weeks we will leave dejected. But I learned today that in the presence of the right company, there are no bad days at (New) Giants Stadium.  

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