Being on a bad team isn’t anything new for Brandon Marshall, the New York Giants wide receiver now embroiled in a horrific one. While the Giants are terrible, Marshall isn’t embroiled in any personal controversy this year, perhaps a first for the enigmatic wide receiver.
For Marshall, he has gotten a front row seat to the Giants 2-13 season both as a player and then since mid-October as a spectator – his year was cut prematurely short with an ankle injury. Marshall spoke for the first time since that injury on Thursday, the veteran wide receiver commenting on a season with so much promise that has gone so very, very wrong for the Giants.
Marshall came to the Giants this offseason as a free agent with playoff hopes in his mind. Now, he must be simply thankful that this season is over and done.
“It’s a unique experience because I think a majority of my career I’ve been in this type of environment and I’m usually in the center of it so it felt good to not be in the center of the drama. So that was interesting, but as you grow you can understand things a little bit better. I think I’ve grown a lot through this season being on the other side of it,” Marshall said. “Adversity, it reveals who you are and we hear this quote so many times, but it’s so true, it reveals who you are. But it’s the perfect opportunity for you to see that and then make changes. That’s the unique thing about football. You come in a boy, you start playing the game as a boy and if you stick around long enough, you become a man. So you learn a lot through these type of times, but it’s really hard to get through them.”
In all likelihood, Marshall’s future isn’t with the Giants as the team likely will go with a youth movement next year.
Set to turn 34-years old this March, he said he wants to continue playing and he thinks he can contribute a couple more years.
Even if it’s not with the Giants.
“Well I only need a couple more years so I’m not really concerned about long term as long as it can give me two-three more years, I’ll be perfectly fine and I think I will be. I really took this time to work on all the little things that we kind of neglect as we become pros, get back to those college workouts,” Marshall said.
“My focus since a week after my surgery has been living in the weight room and rebuilding myself to come back stronger, faster, more explosive, and healthier. I haven’t just been working on my ankle and my toe, I’ve been working on pretty much everything in my body. When you get older it takes a while for things to get going and fire, things deactivate so you spend a lot of those times working on those secondary muscles. So I’m really excited about this offseason because I really spent the last two months priming myself and getting myself ready. So I should be running, I’m already kind of running now, but really out there running with no restrictions in a couple of weeks.”
