You have to feel for every Giants fan, for every Giant, maybe none more than Leonard Williams today.
You never want to join 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 19-season Hall of Fame Cubs career .
Leonard Williams was in his second season with the Jets on the last Sunday of the 2016 regular season, when Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had his own drought in extended playoffs on 16 seasons on Sunday, threw that chance at Buffalo.
But Heartbreak Hotel arrived around 11:30 p.m. Sunday for the Giants and Leonard Williams, who had done everything he could to taste that elusive playoff appearance in his six seasons in the NFL, which had imposed its will. Andy Dalton and the Cowboys, who had refused to let the Giants, 23-19 winners, lose a game they could not lose to dream.
He’s dreaming of a date with Tom Brady on Saturday night at MetLife Stadium.
And then that dream became an unimaginable, unimaginable, inconceivable, unforgivable nightmare on Sunday night, when Doug Pederson, with nothing to play, played not to beat and eliminate WFT.
He played to beat and eliminate 6-10 Giants.
Birds, EAGLES, Birds.
“That’s why we don’t like eagles,” Eli Manning posted on Twitter.
This was a bird trainer move with the title NFC Least on the line.
Pederson had already gone through a chippie field goal that would have made it 17-17, but remained 17-14 for WFT when Jalen Hurts threw incompletely in the final zone on the fourth and 4th.
Now 12:35 left and Pederson summoned Nate Sudfeld to replace Hurts.
Nate Sudfeld, who had thrown 25 career passes, and none this season.
And, of course, Sudfeld immediately threw in an interception and lost the ball when he could not take a small shot 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.
Giants to Doug Pederson: Reservations for nothing.
“I’ve never been in a career and this is my sixth year in the league,” Williams said after the Giants took 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 gone so far. I feel we deserve this. “
He certainly deserved it with three sacks of Dalton, two in the fourth quarter, dominating with the kind of play that Lawrence Taylor and Michael Strahan would have recognized and understood, eventually rushing Dalton into interception of Xavier McKinney’s final area with 1:15 left.
And no one should have been surprised if Big Cat Williams had been the King of Beasts if Wayne Gallman hadn’t made hearts flow before, after much indecision and dismay, it was decided that he had recovered his own fumble at the bottom of a frantic ash shortly thereafter.
Leonard Williams kept an unbelievable dream alive for about eight hours.
But no more.
Williams deserves his big payday after a season – an 11.5 career sack – in which he should have won a Pro Bowl bid and claimed the controversial trade for the Giants, general manager Dave Gettleman, with the Jets for a election in the third round in 2020 and a fifth round in 2021 in the middle of the 2019 season.
Whether Gettleman remains GM or not, Joe Judge should support his flattering words after the game and find a way to keep Williams on the $ 16,126 million one-year franchise label in blue.
“We love him in the building, he’s a great teammate, he’s fun to train,” the judge said. “He makes your job a lot easier in terms of coming to work and enjoying the job, but then also playing on the field, because really, the players make good coaches or not. You can’t be a good coach with bad players, that’s the reality right there and he’s a good player, so he makes us all look much better. We needed to get games from him, it definitely intensified and, look, it was a blast for the coach. “
Gettleman received warmth for the deal, as the 2019 Giants were in the midst of a rebuilding season and weren’t going anywhere fast, and Williams had come under the sixth overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft.
“The juice was worth picking up,” Gettleman said late last season.
There was a lot of juice from Williams on a day that the Giants had to squeeze to the last drop.
“I’ve certainly seen a lot of criticism, hatred and something like that in the press, in the media and by fans,” Williams said. “I feel good to prove them wrong and to show why Dave Gettleman had a chance on me. It feels good to show him it was the right choice. “
In the first half, Williams recorded one of his sacks and attacked Dalton from behind, outside the first descent, in a third and 10th mix in the middle.
He saved his best in the fourth quarter, when the wonderful players are at their best.
Third and 8th in midfield, Giants 20, Cowboys 19, Williams dismisses Dalton.
And then: at 1:53 left, Dalton just 7 meters from the Big Blue end zone, 7 meters from the potential to destroy the Giants’ Unbelievable Dream.
And Leonard Williams fired Dalton back at 17.
Like Jet, Williams recorded only 17 bags in 70 starts. Gettleman saw a 25-year-old man, durable and tall, who could be disruptive by defending the race and humming around the quarterback. Williams could have ordered $ 17.8 million if he had classified it as a defensive end rather than a defensive attack, and his first double-digit sack season will only whet his appetite.
“I feel like an elite group of boys in the double-digit bag category,” Williams said, “and it feels good.”
He reiterated that the search for a monster payday was never his motivation.
“It was never about money,” Williams said. “I think I wanted more respect and to show the boys why they are 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.