‘89 Giants Bear Little Resemblance to ’86 Team

To visit the New York Giants’ training camp, you take I-80 west from the George Washington Bridge, head south on I-287 and veer east on Rt. 124. To find the Giants, at least the Giants that reigned over the National Football League in 1986, requires more than a set of directions and a tank of gas. The players have regrouped at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J., but the team that won the Super Bowl no longer is accessible to the public.

Indeed, two years after they restored the franchise to glory, those Giants are but a pleasant memory. Retirements, defections, illness and dismissals have caused drastic changes in the club’s cast of characters. More than five weeks before the start of the 1989 season, the Giants have sustained incalculable losses.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the team will be less successful than the one that failed to gain a playoff berth by the margin of a last-minute touchdown in the final game last season. What it will be, without question, is markedly different from the Giants with whom New York fans so closely identified in recent years. Those Giants weren’t just popular, they were likeable.

If they never asserted their domination beyond one season, if they never exhibited the consistency of the Huff-Robustelli-Gifford-Webster clubs that turned on New York to professional football, at least they invested several autumns with passion. And when the Giants did secure their lone championship, they did so with an engaging style unique to this group of athletes.

Harry Carson created the Gatorade bath for his coach, Bill Parcells. Has there been any other modern-day player so esteemed that he could get away with such an outrageous demonstration? And on the blustery day in January when the Giants qualified for the trip to Pasadena, Calif., and paradise, Jim Burt, in full uniform, celebrated in the stands among people who had been waiting a lot longer than he for the moment.

Such exuberance was refreshing in a sport that discourages open exchanges between coach and player, between player and fan. The armaments of pro football render its participants faceless. The rules and dictums of coaches conspire to maintain that anonymity. And Parcells was no less inclined than many of his peers to establish a concept of “us against them,” being anyone outside the locker room.

But the Giants were a team of intelligence, of insight and of remarkable good humor. With few exceptions, they welcomed dialogue. Now Carson has retired and Burt, the free-spirited free agent who once ranked among Parcells’ favorite players, has been released under mysterious circumstances. They’re only part of the story.

George Martin, the defensive end who played as long as Charlie Conerly and Joe Morrison and who was so respected by all he touched, retired in tandem with Captain Harry. And Kenny Hill, who overcame a Yale education to bang heads in the secondary, was handed his walking papers. Now the ranking veteran on defense is Lawrence Taylor, who marches to his own tune.

The offense isn’t much more stable. Billy Ard, whose sense of irony was unsurpassed, became an unprotected free agent and signed with the Green Bay Packers, who wanted him. Recall that Ard’s father was a longtime Giant season ticket-holder and the lineman’s selection in the eigjth round of the college draft was among the more popular in recent club history, thanks to the presence of so many relatives and friends at draft headquarters.

His absence reduced the number of Super Bowl starters along the interior offensive line -- the Suburbanites -- to one. And Bart Oates, the center and last link to the past, has remained out of camp while negotiating for a new contract. Of course, even if he returned today, his snaps would be found lacking.

What they would lack precisely is a proven receiver. Phil Simms, whose importance to the team grows with each succeeding year, is a holdout while his agent attempts to upgrade his $750,000 salary. Although Simms’ pay is not small change, it pales in comparison with the contracts of Warren Moon, Bernie Kosar, Boomer Esiason, Jim Kelly and others who have yet to win a championship. And it’s downright embarrassing when judged by the compensation awarded Troy Aikman and Steve Walsh, two quarterbacks who have yet to throw a professional pass. Just the other day, Wade Wilson signed a contract guaranteeing him more than $1 million for each of the next four seasons. for goodness sakes.

Rest assured, Simms will be at quarterback when the Giants open the season at Washington against the Redskins on Monday night, Sept. 11. His frame of mind will be determined by the resolution of contract talks between his agent and general manager George Young. But there’s no reason to believe he won’t give his utmost upon his return, just as he has throughout his career.

His talent and his experience, however, will be fully tested behind a young offensive line. The group in front of him will be big by design and far more imposing than the Suburbanites ever were. And the defense, it is expected, will be quicker without Martin and Carson and Hill. Whether physical gains can offset setbacks in knowledge and maturity is something only time will tell.

The spirit that characterized the 1986 season wasn’t there in 1987, even before the damage inflicted by the strike team. The Giants made some amends last year but failed to rekindle the flame. Perhaps their ability no longer was sufficient for the task. That’s the gamble management has taken. Management’s job is to win now and to that end it has broken with the past.