You have to feel for every Giants fan, every Giant, maybe none more than Leonard Williams today.
You will never want to enter the list of players who have never experienced the postseason, a list that includes Archie Manning and Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers and, of course, Ernie Banks, whose Cubs career at the Hall of Fame spanned 19 seasons.
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 playoff drought extended to 16 seasons, threw that chance away in Buffalo.
But Heartbreak Hotel came close to 11:30 pm on Sunday for the Giants and Leonard Williams, who had done everything in his power to prove that first playoff appearance in his six NFL seasons, which imposed his will on Andy Dalton and the Cowboys, who refused to let the Giants, 23-19 winners, lose a game they couldn’t afford to dream of.
Dream of meeting Tom Brady on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium.
And then that dream became an unthinkable, unimaginable, unscrupulous and unforgivable nightmare on Sunday night when Doug Pederson, with nothing to play for, played to not win and eliminate the WFT.
He played to win and eliminate the 6-10 Giants.
FOWL, EAGLES, FOWL.
“That’s why we don’t like Eagles,” tweeted Eli Manning.
This was a training movement for birds with the NFC Least title at stake.
Pederson had already passed a chippie field goal that he would have made for 17-17, but remained 17-14 for the WFT when Jalen Hurts launched incomplete in the end zone in the fourth to 4.
12:35 remained and Pederson called on Nate Sudfeld to replace Hurts.
Nate Sudfeld, who has launched 25 career passes, and none this season.
And, of course, Sudfeld promptly intercepted and lost the ball when he failed to hit a low snap from the center.
Williams’ prayers, the prayers of all Giants and fans of the Giants, would not be answered.
WFT 20, Eagles 14.
Wait until next year again.
Giants for Doug Pederson: tanks for nothing.
“I’ve never been in my career and this is my sixth year in the league,” said Williams after the Giants took care of business. “So, I mean, it’s been a long time and it will be fun to play a playoff game, especially with this team that is so outdated. I feel we deserve it. “
He certainly deserved it with three Dalton sacks, two in the fourth period, dominating with the kind of game that Lawrence Taylor and Michael Strahan would have recognized and understood, finally rushing Dalton into intercepting Xavier McKinney’s end-zone with 1:15 left .
And no one should have been surprised if Big Cat Williams would be the King of the Animals if Wayne Gallman hadn’t made hearts race before, after much indecision and dismay, it was determined that he had recovered his own disaster at the bottom of a frantic dispute soon after.
Leonard Williams kept an unlikely dream alive for about eight hours.
But not any more.
Williams deserves his big pay after a season – a career record of 11.5 bags – in which he should have won a Pro Bowl bid and justified the questionable switch from Giants general manager Dave Gettleman to him with the Jets to a choice of the third round in 2020 and a fifth round in 2021, midway through the 2019 season.
Whether Gettleman remains the GM or not, Joe Judge must support his flattering post-game words and find a way to keep Williams working on the $ 16.126 million year-old franchise brand in blue.
“We love him in the building, he’s a great teammate, it’s fun to train him,” said Judge. “It makes your job a lot easier in terms of coming to work and enjoying your work, but also making plays on the pitch, because the players are really good coaches or not. You can’t be a good coach with bad players, that’s the reality, and he’s a good player, so he makes us look so much better. We needed to hear his plays, he definitely took a step forward, and look, he’s been a great coach. “
Gettleman was pressured by the deal, because the 2019 Giants were in the middle of another season of rebuilding and were not going anywhere quickly, and Williams underperformed as the sixth overall choice in the 2015 NFL Draft.
“The juice was worth squeezing,” said Gettleman at the end of last season.
Williams drank a lot on a day that the Giants needed to take from him to the last drop.
“I definitely saw a lot of criticism and hate and things like that in the press, in the media and by the fans,” said Williams. “It is good to prove that they are wrong and also to show why Dave Gettleman gave me a chance. It’s good to show him that it was the right choice. “
In the first half, Williams registered one of his sacks and approached Dalton from behind, before the first down in a third-to-ten match in the middle.
He saved his best for the fourth period, when big players are at their best.
Third to 8 in midfield, Giants 20, Cowboys 19, Williams dismisses Dalton.
And then: 1:53 left, Dalton just 7 yards from the Big Blue’s final zone, 7 yards from potentially destroying the giants’ unlikely dream.
And Leonard Williams fired Dalton back at 17.
As a jet, Williams registered only 17 sacks in 70 matches. Gettleman saw a character of high character and durability, then 25 years old, who could be disturbing in defending the run and buzz around the quarterback. Williams could have raised $ 17.8 million if he were classified as a defensive side instead of a defensive tackle, and his first season of double-digit sack will only further whet his appetite.
“I feel like this is an elite group of guys who are in the double-digit bag category,” said Williams, “and that’s a good thing.”
He reiterated that the search for a monster payday was never his motivation.
“It was never about money,” said Williams, “I think I just wanted more respect and show the guys the reason for being in this league.”
He turned 26 in June. The best is yet to come for Leonard Williams. Just not next week against Tom Brady.
Birds, eagles, birds.