Giants Wire
The Philadelphia Eagles will face the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game on Sunday — a prospect that not only sticks in the craw of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones but that of New York Giants co-owner John Mara as well.
While the Giants are sitting home and contemplating their future after a 3-14 season, their two division rivals are vying for a spot in the Super Bowl.
The irony is that both the Eagles and Commanders achieved their recent success at the expense of the Giants. The Eagles added running back Saquon Barkley, who the Giants chose not to continue on with after last season.
That decision was not one Mara agreed with at the time. He questioned his general manager Joe Schoen’s wisdom on the move, adding he would hate to see Barkley re-emerge in an Eagles uniform and torture them for the foreseeable future.
“I’m going to have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia,” Mara told Schoen in a moment that was captured by HBO’s Hard Knocks.
Naturally, Barkley went on to have his best season as a pro, rushing for 2,005 yards in leading the Eagles to the NFC East title and a 14-3 record.
Mara was then taunted last month when Barkley appeared in an ad for a sleep aid that was tongue-in-cheek in nature but stung nonetheless.
On Sunday, Barkley thrust the dagger in deeper by running roughshod over the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Divisional Playoffs.
Washington hit the jackpot with rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels four spots ahead of the Giants in the NFL draft. He is playing at a Patrick Mahomes-like level.
Meanwhile, the Giants have no quarterback — past, present, or future — to speak of and their prospects look extremely bleak.
The Giants are once again on the bottom looking up at hated rivals. Philadelphia has handed them many a painful loss over the years and Mara’s father, Wellington, had great disdain for Washington over the years.
“I can think of nothing sweeter than ruining their day,” the elder Mara once said.
There’s nothing the Giants can do to ruin the Commanders’ day right now. They can only run their own fans’ day. And they’ve been doing that quite regularly over the past decade.
