It’s going to be a big day when the New York Giants take on the Washington Commanders to open the 2025 season.
Obviously, this will be the first time in 245 days that the Giants have played a football game that counts. They also hope that this game is the start of their turnaround and return to being a consistently competitive franchise.
This game also marks the 200th regular season start of quarterback Russell Wilson’s career.
“Yeah, I think to be able to have 200 career starts, regular season starts and not even count the playoffs, it’s a blessing,” he said of the milestone. “I think a big part of it too, like you said, is longevity. I think longevity, I think also just the will and determination to have a plan. Meaning, what’s my treatment schedule? What time am I waking up? What time are you doing this? The consistency and the obsession with that. What time are we watching film? Knowing that on Tuesday, it’s Tuesday, what we’re doing. On Wednesday, we know exactly what we’re doing. That plan and building that out and having a vision for it.”
“God’s blessed me with a lot of talent,” he added. “I have a lot of great people around me to push me and challenge me. I love that every day. Just to do with these guys, man, it makes it fun. I get to do what I love to do with a lot of great guys.”
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels will be making his 18th regular season start.
“I wouldn’t want to tell him too much,” Wilson said with a laugh when asked how Daniels can do to raise his game going into his second year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wilson quickly turned the focus back to his team. He praised the coaching staff and his teammates, and credited them for much of the success in his career.
“I think first of all you’ve got to have a great team,” he said. “To do anything great, you’ve got to have a great team, you’ve got to have great teammates, you’ve got to have a great coaching staff and all that. I think that matters. … I’ve been fortunate to be able to embrace every moment. I know for me in year 14, I feel like this is year one. You embrace it all over again. I feel young, I feel vibrant, I feel energetic. I think it’s one, because I have great confidence, but two, you work at it, and three, most importantly, you’ve got great people around you. When you have great people around you, that’s the part you love. I feel good and I’m excited about that.”
Wilson also spoke about the people around him, mentioning the relationships he’s built with head coach Brian Daboll as well as with wide receiver Malik Nabers.
“Dabs and I talk all the time,” Wilson said of head coach Brian Daboll. “We spend a lot of time on football, a lot of time on just life. I’ve gotten to know his family really well, his kids and stuff like that. Obviously, we have little kids, and they all hang out. He’s just a tremendous football coach. He’s a great man, too. He’s competitive. I love that about him. He loves his players. I really have a really high, high regard for Coach Dabs and the man that he is, the friend that he is, but also the coach that he is.”
“I think Coach Daboll has done a tremendous job of leading us, communicating with us as players, challenging us accountability-wise,” he said later.
“I think too, we’ve been having a lot of fun together. We get to do the best thing in the world, play football, do what we love to do with a lot of guys that we love. That’s what makes it great. Especially when you get to do it with a great organization. They do it the right way here. I think that makes it fun, too. You come to work, you’re excited to ball. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to go do it. That’s the great part about it. We get to try to control that as much as possible. I think we’ve been controlling the controllables, if that makes any sense. I think the controllables are hard work, time and really spending a lot of time on the details of the work. I think we’ve been doing that really well.”
For his part, Daboll has said that’s been surprised to find Wilson in the film room with Nabers and the other receivers. Daboll said, “I’ll pop my head in the quarterback room and he’ll [Nabers] be sitting in there with quarterbacks and Wan’Dale and Slay [Darius Slayton]. That communication process is really important.”
“We spend a lot of time together. All of the receivers, the tight ends, the running backs, the Oline. We spend a lot of time together. We spend extra time together. That’s the important part, though. I think about even yesterday, just spending a good hour, hour and a half with the guys, just watching a bunch of film, understanding what they do well.”
Speaking of the offensive line, the Giants hope to get left tackle Andrew Thomas back for Week 1, though Wilson expressed confidence in backup James Hudson.
“Andrew is a monster,” Wilson said. “He’s been doing a great job getting ready to go, and we’ll see what happens. I think that we’ve got great guys up front. (Offensive lineman James) Hudson’s played a lot of ball. We believe in him. All the guys, we’ve got a lot of experience up front. We’re very confident in who we have. I’m very confident in Andrew if the time is now and all that. That’s up to Andrew and the coaches and the trainers and all that stuff. Just excited about our team, excited about who we have and what we’re doing. Excited about practice tomorrow and the rest of the day.”
“This team has got a lot of great talent and a lot of great guys,” he said, “high character guys, a lot of will, a lot of want to, and a lot of determination to do it the right way. … When you have a veteran o-lineman, and other guys up front that are the same way, in the weight room, spending extra time, those little things add up. I think that’s just been consistent throughout the whole process. We’re doing it together, and we get to do it, and like I said, play the game we love.”
Wilson believes the team as a whole is gelling well going into Week 1. He reiterated that the work they’ve put in throughout the off-season has set them up well for the season.
“I think the guys are doing a great job,” he said. “Just the bonding, the time we spent together, all the hard work. The time in San Diego, the time with the O-line and the whole offensive dinners. Ultimately, the time in the film room, the time in the locker room, the time on the field. Obviously, it’s been a great training camp, great OTAs, couldn’t be much better. I think that the biggest part of it is just us knowing that we’re ready to go. We’re locked in, we’re ready to play some football.”
And we’re ready to see them play some football.
