If this is indeed the case, Russell Wilson is in the right place.
“Sometimes I love the underdog mentality,” the new Giants quarterback said Wednesday, not long after signing. “That’s kind of been my approach every day of my life. I don’t know, maybe being 5-[foot]-11, I don’t know what it is, and people telling you [that] you can’t do something, I love challenges. I love adversity. I love all that stuff.”
Well then, Wilson is going to love getting hooked up with the Giants.
He will be an underdog.
There will be no shortage of people telling him what he cannot do.
There will be challenges and there will be adversity.
There will be all that stuff.
He is now the bandleader and a face of a franchise that is coming off a brutal 3-14 season and seemingly locked in quarterback purgatory, forced to bring in a 36-year-old who is on the downside of what had been an exceptional career.
The Giants signed Wilson to a one-year deal worth a guaranteed $10.5 million, with incentives built in that top out at $21 million.
He now leads an eclectic quarterback room — with newly signed Jameis Winston (two years, $8 million) and returning Tommy DeVito on the roster, and most likely a rookie selected at some point in next month’s draft.
Last year, Wilson considered signing with the Giants, but they told him Daniel Jones was the starter.
A year later, Jones is gone and Wilson moves in.
“I expect to be the starter and come in here and be ready to rock and roll every day,” he said. “To be able to lead, I think this team’s really looking for someone to lead them in every way.”
Wilson was the third choice.
The Giants tried to get Matthew Stafford in a trade with the Rams, then tried to lure Jets castoff and future first-ballot Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers.
Eventually, the Giants got tired of waiting for Rodgers to make up his mind.
“Aaron Rodgers is a tremendous football player. He’s done some amazing things in this league,” Wilson said. “I’ve been fortunate to be able to do some great things, too. Really, what I’m focused on is right now and what we can do here.
“Also, too, along the way is finding a place that will continue to believe in you.”
The Steelers stopped believing in Wilson after one season.
Wilson has to prove the serious downturn his career has taken — a plummet, really — is not a portent of things to come.
So much of the Wilson File feels as if it was unearthed from a bygone era, an earlier time when he ruled the earth before this current period, when he is trying to stave off extinction.
All those accolades and exploits seem so long ago.
The Giants are his fourth team in the past five years.
His record as a starter since 2021 is 23-32.
Wilson sidestepped a question about the decline in his game as adroitly as he used to evade would-be tacklers.
“You never feel like you do enough unless you win it all,” he said. “That’s how I’ve always felt. I’ve had some amazing years and different things along the way, but anytime you don’t win it all as a compeтιтor, as a warrior, you want to be able to say you won it all and did it that year.”
There is certainly a chance the Giants use the No. 3 pick in the draft on a quarterback — Shedeur Sanders is the likely choice, if he is on the board, with Cam Ward expected to go No. 1 to the тιтans.
Wilson does not sound as if mentorship is high on his list.
“If we draft a quarterback we’ll make sure that he does everything he can to be ready to go and be prepared for this mentality,” Wilson said. “But for me, it’s about the process of winning. I’m focused on winning and what I can do as the quarterback of the New York Giants to help us win.”
Clearly, Wilson did his homework. He rattled off name after name of Giants players.
He was teammates in Denver with Giants тιԍнт ends Chris Manhertz and Greg Dulcich.
He called Malik Nabers, his new top target, “this freak of an athlete.” Wilson called his new head coach, Brian Daboll, “one of the most compeтιтive guys” and mentioned Daboll’s five Super Bowl rings from his time with the Patriots and one national championship at Alabama.
“He’s been around greatness, he knows what it looks like, he knows what it sounds like,” Wilson said. “This guy’s been a Coach of the Year, it wasn’t that long ago.”
Wilson won the 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium with the Seahawks, and seeing that building last week when he visited and again on Wednesday stirred something in him.
“It makes you feel some type of way,” Wilson said. “It makes you get excited about the possibilities of what this team can do.”
