Tom Rock: Giants have excelled at dealing with adversity; now we'll see how they handle prosperity

If there was one theme to the first half of the Giants’ season, it was dealing with discomfort and overcoming adversity.

Before the first game was played, they lost one of their key receivers, the forgotten Calvin Austin III, to an ACL tear. Then came the season-enders to Jaxson Dart, Brian Burns and Tremaine Edmunds.

They had to schlep to West Virginia for training camp, and it rained on the first day. They went to Miami in August and sweated through a joint practice. And when they came back to New Jersey, they had to set up in a makeshift locker room in a parking lot while construction took place on the facility proper.

Any of those situations easily could have become an excuse.

Instead, each of them was embraced and became an identity.

Would they be better off if none of those circumstances had befallen them? Probably. Would they be as mentally strong and determined if they had not? We’ll never know, but there is a good chance the answer is no.

Which makes where the Giants stand now, in first place in the NFC East heading into back-to-back division games off their bye week, feel like a bit of a precarious position.

They are the new favorites to make the playoffs, the darling dark horses trying to put a dent in the upper-crust crowd in the conference, and after being underdogs in each of their previous two games, they are giving points to bettors in a stadium where they haven’t won in their last 13 visits.

For a team that was so comfortable being uncomfortable, such sure footing can seem . . . slippery.

These Giants aren’t too worried about any of that, though.

“To me, it’s all kind of meaningless,” John Harbaugh said of the Giants’ current perch. “There’s still 10 games left to play, and I’m quite sure every one of the teams in the division believes that in those 10 games, they can make up ground.

“I’ve had experience with that in my coaching career. Players know that it’s what you do, it’s not what anybody says about you or where you get ranked or anything like that. It’s just about what you do. You’ve got to go win games.”

Still, Harbaugh said he is going to keep an eye out for signs of complacency and that the team’s veterans already have addressed the risks of such thinking with the full roster.

Their overall message? The 4-2-1 start is good, but not close to good enough.

“We’re not really anywhere close to that yet,” Harbaugh said of listening to outside praise, believing it and having it soften the team’s edge. “We’re fighting for our lives, too. We’ve got everything to gain, and we know how big this game is. We know who we’re going against. We’ll be ready.”

They’d better be.

If they can’t beat the Eagles (2-6) as currently constructed, the whole first half of the season will seem pointless. The euphoria of it will feel as distant in the past as the Sneakers Game, a twinkle of success in a long-ago era.

Hey, remember that time we went down to Houston and won in overtime in our quarterback’s first start for the organization? Those sure were swell days.

If they do win, though, and if they can do it again on Thursday when they host the Commanders, they’ll have the division in a headlock and really be allowed to start daydreaming about what lies ahead.

Well, we will at least.

“When things start to go as planned, you have to continue to climb that mountain and continue to stick to the plan,” linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux said this week. “I’m not really too worried about where we were or where we’re going, just where we are and how can we continue to climb.”

There still are a few speed bumps for this team, some real and some imagined.

They could be without two of their top three running backs as Tyrone Tracy Jr. is on injured reserve and Cam Skattebo was listed as doubtful with a hamstring issue, both from injuries suffered two weeks ago in the victory over the Texans. That could leave Devin Singletary as the lone running back on the game-day active roster who has taken a handoff this season.

They’re also pretty banged up at special teams returners, so defensive starters Deonte Banks and Jevon Holland might be called into service. “Not ideal,” Harbaugh said of that situation.

As for the more fabricated parts, the Giants will face Joe Milton as the Eagles’ quarterback. When that news broke this week, it seemed to catch a lot of attention in regard to changing the dynamics of this game.

Man, if it actually does, the Giants are in trouble.

So they’ll go into Philadelphia on Sunday with expectations as high for them as they have been in years. They’ll go in with the league expecting them to make a statement. They’ll go in with momentum and optimism and sunshine glinting off their helmets.

They’ll face what usually is a hostile fan base that is too busy tearing apart their own team these days to worry about throwing eggs and screaming obscenities at the Giants. Well, maybe not completely, but there are bound to be a few less of those things hurled than usual.

In other words, many of the things that they thrived on not having in the first eight weeks suddenly will be at their disposal.

At least when they get back from Philly, they’ll still be in the same crummy locker room.

We know they can overcome challenges and handle disappointments and keep swinging. They’ve illustrated that. Now we are about to find out just how comfortable the Giants are with being comfortable.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.