Nearly 100 franchise legends were in attendance for a Week 1 game between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings, which turned out to be a humiliating home drubbing.
The Vikings wiped the floor with the Giants, 28-6, in a game that wasn’t even that close.
By halftime, it was clear the Giants had little fight in them and weren’t capable of competing against another bottom-third team. It frustrated several of the all-time greats, including the usually tight-lipped Lawrence Taylor.
While lining up to be honored, Taylor leaned over to Carl Banks and made an admission that should concern co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch.
The Standard: #watch @BleavNetwork 👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/atiqHSb2Cy
— Carl Banks (@CarlBanksGIII) September 9, 2024
“I can tell you when we were lining up to go out to be introduced as the top 100 players,” Banks said on the Bleavin Giants podcast, “And a guy who never really comments on games because he doesn’t watch many of them, was Lawrence Taylor.
“He looked at me and this is a true story, folks. If you want to know what we were thinking at halftime, Lawrence looked at me and said, “Carl, I could pick 22 of us right now and go out and play better than these guys. We’d win this game.’ And the youngest guy in that like was probably 50 years old.”
Hyperbole? Probably not as much as some would want to believe.
“Lawrence Taylor looked at me and said, ‘I can get 22 of us and go out there right now and whoop these guys (expletive),” Banks said.
Recently voted the best player in Giants history, Taylor is never short on confidence and intensity. He undoubtedly believes what he said and the sad reality is, it’s probably closer to true than not. And that’s a really sad indictment about where the organization currently is.
