Fans have viewing schedules that often don't line up with the viewing schedules players have during the season.
Fans often stay up late to watch the fascinating matches until the very end.
What about the players? They try to stay awake, but often they fall asleep because they are exhausted from a game or practice and know they have to get up early the next morning to go to the team facility and practice again.
Devin Singletary and the Giants lost to the Commanders, 21-18, in a Sunday afternoon game in Landover, Maryland in Week 2. The short trip back without a flight allowed the players to return home and get a good night's sleep in their own beds.
The next night, Singletary planned to stay up late to watch the “Monday Night Football” game between the Eagles and Falcons, but his plans didn't go according to plan.
“I watched most of the game and then I fell asleep,” Singletary told The Post. “I think I fell asleep around the third quarter. I was pissed that I fell asleep. I woke up like 1 a.m. and I was like, 'What happened?' So I went to the game and saw what happened.”
What actually happened, and what Singletary didn't get to see live, was the Eagles falling apart when Saquon Barkley knocked an easy third-down swing pass from Jalen Hurts out of his hands with 1:46 left, the clock running out. If Barkley had made a routine catch, the Eagles would have won. Instead, they took a 21-15 lead with a field goal.
With no timeouts, the Falcons went 70 yards in just six plays and stunned the Philadelphia crowd with a Kirk Cousins touchdown pass to Drake London with 34 seconds left to beat the Eagles, 22-21.
Singletary, who signed with the Giants shortly after Barkley officially signed with the Eagles, was particularly interested in the play that opened the door for the Falcons. During his brief time with the Giants, Singletary has repeatedly praised Barkley's talent but has avoided making direct comparisons about whether Barkley could contribute to the Giants' offense.
“It's a tough situation,” Singletary said of Barkley's dropped pass. “It's football, those things happen. He's a great player. In his day-to-day life, that's just something he makes all the time. He just dropped the ball, but he makes plays like that all the time.”
“It just happened to be that moment, so it was magnified. That situation for him is like anything, rushing for 200 yards is the same. [yards]You can't get too high and then if he drops the ball you get really low. You can't get too low. You want to stay in the middle.”
Of course, Barkley was criticized for dropping balls. He was hard on himself for it, and outsiders were hard on him for it.
“It goes hand in hand,” Singletary said. “I think it will. If something goes wrong, it's always going to be this or that or third. If it goes right, it's not even talked about.”
Singletary has performed as expected for the Giants through three games, although he needs to improve on his two lost fumbles.
He led the team with 42 rushing attempts and 197 yards, and the Giants would be ecstatic if he can maintain that 4.7-yard average.
General manager Joe Sean and coach Brian Daboll had worked with Singletary with the Bills and expected to see some positive results from the undersized running back everyone called “Motor.”
The match will be streamed live on Amazon Prime Video on Thursday night.
Sean and Daboll also knew that Singletary and Barkley would be compared frequently, and that the threat of Hurts' run-pass option would open up lanes for Barkley, who would likely thrive running behind the Eagles' strong offensive line.
Through three games into the season, the 27-year-old Barkley leads the NFL with 351 rushing yards, an average of 5.6 yards per rush. He has four rushing touchdowns. At this pace, Barkley will have rushed for 1,989 yards and 23 touchdowns, which would break his career highs of 1,312 yards and 11 rushing touchdowns set with the Giants in 2022 and 2018 as a rookie.
The 27-year-old Singletary has played six seasons in the NFL but has never reached 1,000 yards and has never been mentioned in the “best back in the NFL” discussion.
He's a personable personality in the locker room who doesn't seek attention but is always happy to talk to anyone who approaches him. He didn't hesitate to keep the No. 26 jersey that Barkley wore throughout his career with the Giants and now the Eagles.
After a dropped pass, Barkley rescued the Eagles and threw for 65 yards and four touchdowns in the fourth quarter to lead the Eagles to a 15-12 victory over the Saints, a stunning comeback after disappointing the team the previous week.
“When something like this happens, everyone thinks the world is going to end, but what the outside world thinks doesn't actually matter,” Barclay said.
It sounds like advice Singletary would have offered.
