Let's all say a moment of thanks for LeBron James giving professional athletes a new way of expressing their disgust with the people who care about their sports.
James infamously said that he hoped everyone rooting against him in the NBA Finals would go back to living their miserable lives while he enjoyed his vast fame and wealth even though he forgot to play the fourth quarters of his games against the Mavericks. Since then, other athletes have used that reference as a guide to insult fans.
Surely, no one on the Giants, always hailed as the classiest and most professional of organizations, would ever pick up on this line of reasoning, right? What say you, Brandon Jacobs?
"Well, the only thing that matters are the people on this football team and in this organization believe in this football team," Jacobs said. "The people outside that want to say they're fans and don't believe in us, I couldn't care less if they ever believe in us. They don't mean anything to us if they don't believe in us. They can go back and finish living their miserable lives that they've been living and hoping that we lose."
Careful, everybody, sounds like Jacobs is planning to throw another helmet.
It's pretty funny to hear this from Jacobs, who was one of the lead lambasters of the people who were singing the Eagles' praises before they lost to the Giants last week. One can only believe in the Giants in Jacobs' world, apparently.
Is there anything more tiresome than an athlete playing the "no one believes in us" card? At least have the decency to wait until you've actually accomplished something before you decided to play it.
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At 2-1, the Giants are pretty much where you would have expected them after three games. The loss to the Redskins and the win over the Eagles might have been the opposite way in people's minds, but the results are pretty much what everyone -- even these so-called true believers that Jacobs loves so much -- would have predicted at the outset.
Giants fans saw this team go 11-1 and straight into the toilet three years ago and they saw them wind up in the same place after starting 5-0 two years ago. Heck, they were 6-2 last year and then didn't make the playoffs, so who but the most miserable of people would really blame them for wanting to see more than two wins in three games before they start erecting monuments to Jacobs?
This nonsense can all be put to rest if the Giants go out and take care of business on a weekly basis the way they did against the Eagles last week. The Cardinals offer a very good chance to get that ball rolling this weekend.
They aren't as good as the Eagles, they don't have the depth of talent that the Giants have, and unless the Giants show up without being ready to play, there's no reason they should win this game. If they don't, it's pretty likely that a lot of us will qualify for Jacobs' miserable life prediction because there won't be much belief in the Giants.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
