Russell Wilson has changed vibes around Giants, and it feels good
Giants quarterback Russell Wilson prepares to lead his time onto the field during a preseason game against the Patriots on Aug. 21 at MetLife Stadium. Credit: Ed Murray
Russell Wilson will make his regular-season debut as the starting quarterback of the Giants at Washington on Sunday. That’s the easy part. He’s already accomplished the much more daunting challenge he was brought here to meet.
There is a charge in the air among and around this team, an elan that had been missing for many, many years, and a lot of that is because of what Wilson brought with him in his move to East Rutherford. He not only gives the Giants the promise of competent play at the position — another element sorely absent in recent times — but has quickly infused the locker room with a spirit of positivity that no team coming off a three-win season could possibly fake.
He's altered the vibes. That’s everything the Giants' coaches and executives hoped for when they signed him. Everything the players didn’t even know they were missing.
“He brings a championship mindset,” defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said of Wilson’s impact. “He understands what it takes to be a champion and guys respect that and listen and gravitate to that. You have guys adopting that. That’s real important.
“For sure, we needed some guys who have done it.”
There aren’t a lot of them around, by the way, and the Giants haven’t had anything like this since Eli Manning left the building after the 2019 season.
Wilson is one of only six active quarterbacks in the NFL who have won a Super Bowl. Only four others have started one. That’s 10 players spread around 32 teams. Among current quarterbacks, only Wilson, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts have appeared in more than one Super Bowl.
Certainly it's been a while since Wilson won it all. He led the Seahawks to the title in the 2013 season. That was 12 years ago. The only current teammate of his who was even in the league at the time is 38-year-old kicker Graham Gano. Everyone else was in college. Or high school. Or middle school.
But while the years have rolled along, Wilson has remained practically unchanged from the second-year player who hoisted a Lombardi Trophy at MetLife Stadium. Heck, he hasn't even fluctuated from the player he was when he was in college.
"I’ve had a unique experience because I was with Russ for three years at N.C. State, so I knew him as a young kid," Giants quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney said of his time as a grad assistant at the school. "Russ hasn’t changed. He’s the same guy he was when he was 18 years old, still has a great work ethic, prepares every day like it’s new for him, takes notes. He is the definition of a pro."
Wilson has added more than that rare Super Bowl experience to these Giants anyway. At a time when they were a teetering franchise, rudderless at the most important position in the sport with a coaching staff and front office brought back somewhat grudgingly amid waning patience, he has provided much-needed direction and stability. That time of crisis seems so far away in the past. It was just a few months ago.
The gloom is gone. A quarterback known for throwing moon balls has brought sunshine to the Giants.
And he has done that psyche switcheroo without a single touchdown pass or victory for the team. The truth is Wilson could go the entire season without completing a pass and still have completed his mission here.
“I think mindset is everything,” he said. “I think belief is everything. I think it’s belief in one another, faith in one another, faith in the process and belief in the process and the system and what we do really well, then working at those things at a relentless rate.”
Sound corny? Schlocky? That’s because it definitely is. But it’s also something many of these Giants players haven’t heard directly from one of their peers, certainly not any who have big rings with diamonds in the shape of a team logo and a trophy within reach.
Wilson isn’t the only one spreading this mantra.
“They brought in guys like Roy [Robertson-Harris], [Jevon] Holland, [Paulson] Adebo, Russ, Jameis [Winston],” Lawrence said. “It’s good to have those guys come in and help mold that mindset.”
They also have returning players, including captains such as Lawrence, Brian Burns, Bobby Okereke and Darius Slayton, to reinforce things from the perspective of having been with the Giants for a while.
Wilson, though, is the main messenger. He’s changed it all. And he’s also the only captain on the team in his first year with the Giants.
The best part about it all? Even if he stinks, if he can no longer play, it’s no big deal. They’ll just turn to first-round draft pick Jaxson Dart as their starting quarterback and keep moving forward with the mindset Wilson helped imbue. It’s been another part of Wilson’s job description to teach Dart how to step into the leadership role he will one day — and one day relatively soon, whether he is gloriously successful or devastatingly awful — cede to the rookie.
That probably won’t be the case, though. The stinking part, at least. And the ceding part won’t happen right away. Dart may be closing the gap on Wilson for the starting job, but coach Brian Daboll has been adamant about it being Wilson’s for now. And Wilson has looked good in training camp and in the preseason games.
But how he plays likely won’t be what he will be remembered for most around here once he moves on after this one-year contract. His true impact will be in how he showed the Giants what a winner looks and acts like.
“I think the guys are doing a great job,” Wilson said of his teammates. “Just the bonding, the time we’ve spent together, all the hard work. The time in San Diego [for offseason workouts], the time with the O-line and the whole offensive dinners. Ultimately, the time in the film room, the time in the locker room, the time on the field. Obviously, it's been a great training camp, great OTAs, couldn't be much better. I think that the biggest part of it is just us knowing that we're ready to go. We're locked in.
“We’re ready to play some football.”
At this point, that last part feels almost like an afterthought.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
