FMIA Week 1: Giants Go ‘Aggressive, Not Reckless’ In Upset, Steelers Survive Weird Day And More Takeaways

A few days ago, in a Giants’ full team meeting, coach Brian Daboll showed the team a clip from ESPN’s documentary “The Captain” on Derek Jeter. In the doc, there’s a play with a 1998 outfield miscue that prompted Yankees pitcher David Wells to throw up his hands in disgust. Jeter, just 24 then, went to the mound and said to Wells: “Hey, we don’t do that s— around here.”

Daboll knew the kind of team he had. To be kind, his first edition of the Giants is not exactly a Super Bowl winner. He knew there could be some tough days ahead, and maybe lots of them. So he followed the clip by telling the team: “We don’t do that s— around here either.”

So now it was Sunday in Nashville, halftime, and the Giants weren’t doing much right, and the outside world had already given up on the ’22 Jints. “My god the Giants are bad,” Tweeted Pro Football Talk managing editor Michael David Smith. “Dave Gettleman left behind as bad a roster as I can remember any GM leaving any team.” Smith wasn’t alone. Tennessee was up 13-0 at halftime, and fans watching Big Blue on TVs from Asbury to Ansonia, from New Paltz to New London, clicked over to find something, anything to take their minds off the start of another miserable year.

Ninety minutes later, they were clicking back. Ninety minutes later, as the Giants, down 20-13 with three minutes to play, were driving for a touchdown, Daboll asked five defensive players, separately, “Hey, when we score, we’re going for two — you okay with that?” Five for five, yes. His team’s not a democracy, but as Daboll said later, “Those are the guys out in the battle, laying it on the line. I want to make sure they’re okay with going for it all right there. They were like, ‘Hell yeah.’

“The one thing I’ve said to them