The playoffs seem like a long shot for the Giants💝, but history has proven other🧔wise.
Since the NFL expanded to a 12-team playoff formﷺat in 1990, three teams have started as slowly as the 0-3 Giants and rebounded to reach the postseason — the 1992 Chargers, who were 0-4 and won 11 of their last 12 games, the 1995 Lions and most recently, the 1998 💧Bills.
Remaining positive was important to his team’s extreme turnaround, former Chargers coach Bobby Ross told The Post in a phone interview. He did anything po🎐ssible to instill confidence in his struggling team. He never showed game or practice film of negative plays, only positive ones. He advised his players to avoid reading the nಌewspaper and watching television.
Ross propped his team up at every opportunity, showing his players hi🍰ghlights of what he felt they were c🐠apable of doing consistently, while everyone else was putting them down.
“I💞 kept harping on it,” the retired Ross said. “ ‘Those people don’t know wha🃏t we’re capable of.’
“I can stilꦇl remember one day going to them [with my 🌳hand extended], saying, ‘It’s not shaking one bit. I believe in our system and I believe in you.’ ”
Former Bills defensive end Marcellus Wiley said the 1998 Bills’ season changed when head coach Wade Phil🌸lips made a permanent switch at quarterback, replacing Rob Johnson with Doug Flutie in Week 5 after Flutie engineered a comeback win over the Colts.
“That really galvanized us. That really gave us a lot of energy,” said Wiley, who hosts ESPN2’s SportsNation with Max Kellerman. “It was easy for us. We had one position change and it gave everyone a different confidence and energy. If I had to apply it to the Giants, what could change is Eli [Manning] taking care of the ball. It could be David Wilson just exploding, because he has that kin𒀰d of talent. They need something they can rally around, point to, ‘that’s our pivotal moment.’ ”
The Giants don’t seem to have a magic elixir quite like Flutie, and it would be silly to even think about benching 😼Manning, Wiley said, since he is getting very little protection and has a history of great♛ quarterback play on his resume.
Wiley noted the Redskins were 3-6 last year and won the NFC East and the Broncos start💧ed 1-2 and went on to finish 13-3 and claim the top seed in the AFC.
“All their goals ar𝄹e still ♑in front of them,” Wiley said of the Giants, “but mentally, do they see it and believe in that?”
Phillips, now the defensive coordinato🏅r for the Texans, said the key for his Bills team was staying together while “everybody wanted to run me out of town.”
“The team just kept believing in themselves,” P⛄hillips said. “We just kept being positive and started playing better.”
They never lost faith, staying hopeful rather than pessimistic, and like the 💫’92 Chargers, reached the playoffs a♓gainst the odds.
The Giants would be wise to emulate the o♔utlook of those Chargers and Bills teams before it’s too late.