The New York Giants put together their best all-around game of the 2023 season in Week 6 against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday Night Football. However, it wasn’t enough to get the victory, as the team fell to 1-5 on the season.
It was a gut-wrenching loss as Brian Daboll and the coaching staff put together the perfect game plan to even the playing field against a strong Bills team. However, execution fell just short and in the end, it was another loss on their record.
While it was encouraging that the team played well without starting quarterback Daniel Jones, moral victories don’t count for much in the NFL. Star running back Saquon Barkley didn’t mince words talking after the game, giving his teammates an ultimatum.
“I mean, it depends, it can go two ways,” the star running back began when asked if he sees the Buffalo Bills defeat as a “gut-punch loss” or a “building block” for the future during his postgame press conference.
“That’s with anything in life,” Barkley explained. “When something happens, you can pick [one of] two choices — you can let it be like that or you can go to work and you can see that we’re 1-5, we’re not where we want to be, everyone’s going to continue to say what they want to say about us, but it’s on us. No one’s going to save us, it’s on us.”
Barkley made his return to the lineup against the Bills after missing the last three games because of an ankle injury suffered in Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals. His impact was felt right away, as he improved as the game went along after missing multiple contests.
He isn’t the only player who is showing leadership in the locker room, as offensive lineman Justin Pugh is as well. The Giants signed Pugh off his couch and he was immediately thrown into the fire as the starting left guard.
He was expecting to give the team about 25 snaps, but when Josh Ezeudu was carted off because of a toe injury, it was Pugh who slid over to left tackle. After a tough start, he found his way and played as well as anyone has at the position since Andrew Thomas went down in Week 1.
“There’s a lesson in this somewhere,” Pugh told reporters. “You get dealt a s***** hand, you gotta play the best you can and then go out there and fight for your guys.”
“That’s the one thing that I always do,” the blocker voiced. “You look to the guy next to you, to the right of you, and look at Tyrod [Taylor] back there, and you’re like — hey, I got a job to do, I want to go out there and fight for those guys.”
This certainly isn’t how the Giants expected their 2023 season to go after making the playoffs last season. But, if they want any hopes of turning things around, heeding the words of Barkley and Pugh is a good place to start with a divisional matchup against the Washington Commanders on deck.
