New York Giants Pro Bowl nose tackle Dexter Lawrence has achieved just about everything a young athlete in this country aspires to. Wealth, fame, accolades, they’re all there. Just one thing is missing.
Winning.
Since Lawrence joined the Giants as the 17th overall selection in the 2019 NFL draft, Big Blue has been very small, compiling a 32-69-1 record with only one winning season.
Lawrence’s tenure with the Giants has been a reversal of fortune for the 6-foot-4, 340-pounder, who won two National Championships at Clemson. Seven years into his pro career, he’s still searching for the team success he had in college.
This is the year all of that was supposed to change. The Giants have been loading up through the draft and making better choices in free agency. As we enter Week 3 of this season, the Giants are still searching for their first win.
They play Kansas City Sunday night in their home opener, and Lawrence, whose frustration with losing has been rumored to be boiling over, is not letting the team’s early failures sidetrack his goals.
“I think it’s just a great opportunity, first game at home, Sunday night, to go out there and get our first win, and that’s the biggest thing. It matters how I play in a sense, but it doesn’t matter if we don’t win. I know I’ve got to be at my best, and I will be at my best Sunday night, and I’ll be ready,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The Giants lost two winnable games to start the season. Their 21-6 defeat in the season opener to Washington was marred by offensive failures, especially in the red zone. Those troubles carried over into their 40-37 overtime loss in Dallas, where the defense lost three leads in the fourth quarter.
Lawrence is used to being 0-2. Heck, the Giants have practically been 0-2 at this point of the season every year the past decade. He is advising his teammates to keep looking forward.
“I think it’s just going out and flushing. Starting really yesterday, your recovery day, you’re getting a flush. You flush your body, you flush the L, you’re recovering from that, and you respond Wednesday. That’s today,” he said. “You respond in practice the right way.
“I think we had a great practice. I think guys were running around, we were getting to the ball, fitting up the run well. I think that’s the biggest thing. You don’t let it linger, because that’s how it just keeps stacking and keeps stacking. I think from Week 1 to Week 2, we improved. I think Week 2 to Week 3 we’re going to continue to improve.”
The Giants have too much talent now to be floundering and beating themselves with foolish penalties and poor execution. They need to turn a corner here, and soon. Perhaps a stumbling Chiefs team can help them get there on Sunday night.
Lawrence isn’t taking the 0-2 Chiefs lightly. Any time Patrick Mahomes is staring you down across the line of scrimmage, you’re in for a game.
“They’ve still got a lot of their core people. Wins don’t always go your way, clearly. I’ve got a ton of respect for them and the way they play football and the way that they’ve been leading for years. That just doesn’t disappear, so you’ve got to go out there and attack them, attack them like they won the Super Bowl last year type of thing and that’s the mindset,” he said.
We’ll see if the Giants can put that to work on Sunday night.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: Dexter Lawrence’s message to New York Giants: ‘Flush’ the losses, focus on Chiefs
Reporting by John Fennelly, Giants Wire / Giants Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
