The reality is the Giants have a 1-4 record heading into Thu

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EAST RUTHERFORD , N.J. (AP) — It’s hard to say whether the New York Giants are engaging in wishful thinking or there is something to their optimism these days.gainst the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles (2-3) and they are facing long odds in a bid to make the playoffs in coach Pat Shurmur’s first season.The struggling Eagles have beaten New York in their last three meetings and seven of the last eight. The Giants are coming off an excruciating last-second 33-31 loss to Carolina on a 63-yard field goal by Graham Gano, and now they have to rebound with three days of preparation.But the Giants believe there is reason for hope. Their offense scored 30 points for the first time since the end of the 2015 season. The team rallied from an 11-point fourth-quarter deficit to take a lead with just over a minute to play, only to be denied by a near-record kick. And they did all this despite dealing with some ill-chosen words by star receiver Odell Beckham Jr., about Eli Manning and the team’s heart in the days leading up to the game.“Very optimistic,” Beckham said Tuesday when asked about the team. “I’ve always said, it’s a long season, and we have an opportunity to come in here in a big, big division game and be able to reshape our season. We know what we have in front of us, short week, just coming off of a tough loss, so we’re all just trying to get our minds wrapped around what the game plan is, how we can come out and best beat Philly.”The Eagles tend to bring out some of the best in the Giants. Despite winning only three games last season, they lost two games to Philadelphia by eight points, with the first coming on a last-second 61-yard field goal by Jake Elliott. The second was 34-29 in a game New York trailed by two points entering the final quarter.The Giants also could be getting some key players back. Linebacker and leading pass rusher Olivier Vernon, who has yet to play because of a high ankle sprain, is very close to ready. Tight end Evan Engram, who missed the last two games with a sprained knee, was going to test his knee in practice on Tuesday. Both were limited.Engram watched the telecast of the game in Charlotte this past weekend and was encouraged.“There was a point in that game where maybe last year or the old DNA of this team would’ve given up or would’ve tapped out ,” Engram said.Rookie halfback Saquon Barkley said the Giants scored 30 and left points on the field.“We got to continue to keep growing, continue to keep working and to be able to put up 30 points,” Barkley said. “I think that game showed it was the toughness, the grit, the passion that we played with as a team, and obviously the outcome wasn’t the way we wanted to be, but you could learn a lot of things from that game and take that game a long way.”NOTES: PK Aldrick Rosas, perfect on field goals and PATs this season, did not practice again because of a sore quad. The Giants have signed Marshall Koehn to their practice squad. He was in training camp. He was working for Randy’s Flooring in Coralville, Iowa when the Giants called Monday. “I looked at my phone because I was making a delivery and there were two calls from my dad, two from my mom and two more my agent. Everyone was freaking out.” Needless to say, he found his way to New Jersey. The Giants can wait until 4 p.m. on game day to active Koehn if needed. … LB Connor Barwin (knee) and WR Russell Shepard (neck) also did not practice. Barwin has been dealing with a knee issue all season.__ Don’t look now, but the 3-7 New York Giants are actually in the discussion in the NFC East. The Washington Redskins lead the division at 6-4, but lost a game and a quarterback on Sunday as Alex Smith suffered a broken leg in a loss to the Houston Texans. The Dallas Cowboys are 5-5, and the 4-6 Philadelphia Eagles got destroyed 48-7 on Sunday by theNew Orleans Saints. It’s improbable. A little insane, even. But, why shouldn’t the Giants dream a little?“Crazy, isn’t it?” asked coach Pat Shurmur after Sunday’s 38-35 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. “That’s what I said through the first eight weeks. You just gotta keep playing. You never know.”Odell Beckham’s dream of the Giants winning eight straight games remains alive. Still incredibly unrealistic. But , alive.“It’s the same mentality every week. If the o-line is playing like that every single game, it’s going to be hard. The goal is to win every game. So six games left, it’s really only crazy until you do it,” Beckham said after the game. “I just love to see these guys in here after the game with smiles on their faces. We just put it all together, so it’s always a lot more fun when you win.”Quarterback Eli Manning, off a 17-of-18 performance that was the most efficient of his career, “I think there is some excitement going around,” Manning said. “It is good. It is a good feeling to have in the locker room and you see some growth. You see the improvement. You see guys getting familiar with their spots and what they are doing.”Safety Michael Thomas had one of the Giants’ four interceptions and recovered an onside kick with 2:22 remaining to help seal the victory. He said the Giants just want to “keep working, keep believing.”“We’re playing one game seasons at this point. Two in a row, that’s a little run, but next week we’re going to try to go 1-0 again,” Thomas said. “All we thought about and all we talk about, we weren’t where we wanted to be with that 1-7 start. But DG (Dave Gettleman) and this team, this organization brought in great character guys with leadership and talent from other organizations. All we talked about was staying the course, keep working, keep believing and when we come back from this bye week, one game at a time. Let’s just try to have one game seasons and win and we’re just going to keep doing that. That’s the type of guys we have in this locker room. That’s the reason why we’re trying to go on this run.”Winning these games is a good thingBecause of the 1-7 start and the reality that a playoff run, while mathematically still possible is still highly unlikely , don’t want to believe that winning these game — or any games down the stretch — is a good thing. But, it is. I know, I know. A couple of weeks ago the Giants had the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Now, if the draft were held today, they would pick fifth. So, they have lost a handful of spots.In my view, though, they have gained much more.The biggest thing they have gained? Call it confidence. A little belief in themselves. A little knowledge of what it takes to win games.The Giants have won back-to-back close games that were in doubt in the final moments.Against the San Francisco 49ers, they got a last-minute drive to put them ahead and a defensive stand to seal the victory.Against Tampa Bay, they got off to their best start of the season getting out to 14-0 and 24-7 leads, then made enough plays on offense, defense and special teams to hold on for the victory.With a largely young, new team that is still getting to know each other they learned a little bit about each other and about how to win. If that cost them a few spots in the draft order, so be it.“We played lights out today. We started out fast. We got our playmakers the ball and we did an amazing job blocking up front. The O-Line had control of the game and had control of the line of scrimmage the entire game. Tight ends, we had our blocking packages in. Everybody was just doing their job and so when we start fast and do that, we play complementary football, we score a lot of points and that happened today.”That’s tight end Evan Engram, talking excitedly after the game about what the Giants accomplished on Sunday.Here’s more Engram on what it means to win:“It’s important and it’s fun. We put so much work in and we’ve been through so much , especially this year. To come out and start fast and to play a full game – in the league, those rare games where you just win outright and just chill the whole game. We had to work all game and that means a lot to us. Means a lot to the things we’ve been through and the work we’re putting in is finally starting to roll. We just got to keep going and keep building off of it.”Now the Giants go to Philly In Week 6, the Eagles came in to MetLife and Stadium and destroyed the Giants 34-13. That came four days after the Giants had been shocked by a 63-yard game-ending Graham Gano field goal that stole a game against the Carolina Panthers from them that they should have won.At that time you never would have believed that the Giants would have a legitimate chance to go into Philadelphia in Week 12 and win a game. With the 4-6 Eagles coming off a game in which they were destroyed by the New Orleans Saints and looking like anything but the defending Super Bowl champions, anything is possible. This certainly is a lot more fun than just playing out the string with a bunch of meaningless games. “The difference in these wins are that we’re executing. We’re finishing games, we’re finishing drives, and that’s what we wanted to do in the first half of the season,” Saquon Barkley said after his 27-carry, 142-yard, 3 touchdown performance. “In almost every single game that we were playing, we weren’t executing, and Coach (Pat Shurmur) put up a highlight reel of plays that we just missed. That’s how close we were, and that’s how close we know we are. These last few games, I feel the complete opposite of that.’The Giants are making progress. They are learning. They are winning. They feel better about themselves, and their future.This is better. This has to give them some optimism that they could be on a path to better future. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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