Rich: Why the New York Giants WILL Win the NFC East This Season

It started with a frustrated Eagles fan named Kenny calling in from D.C. He was tired of Tanner McKee, wanted Milton in, wanted Sirianni gone and, above all, wanted "the bleeding to stop." Rich told him he wasn't sure a winning season was coming, since Philadelphia has lost six in a row and its defense, despite being intact, is getting run all over.

Then Kenny dismissed the whole division as the "NFC least," and the room piled on. Nobody from that division, someone said, is winning a Super Bowl or going to the NFC Championship.

That is when Rich asked for a moment to let Staten Island speak. He clarified that he is not from the North Shore, where the Wu-Tang Clan hails from, but from the Willowbrook section in the middle of the island. "Method Man would back my play on this even though he's a Jet fan," he said.

His argument: "The Giants are 4-2-1, and if Skattebo didn't fumble, and I hate to throw it on him, they're 5-2. And they are a good football team."

And if he were John Harbaugh, Rich said, he would take all the NFC least talk as fuel, especially from a die-hard Eagles fan whose season is essentially over, with the Giants coming to town off a bye. "The Giants are going to win this division. I'm saying it," Rich declared. "They're going to win some games in the remaining weeks that you don't expect them to, and they're going to get better, and there's going to be a playoff game in New Jersey. And John Harbaugh is going to be the coach on the home team sideline for it."

The room knew where this was headed. "The man who shall deliver is my guy," Rich said. When accused of making it all about JJ, he said it was not all about that, but "it's got a lot to do with it, though."

It's also about pride. Rich does not want the Giants lumped in "with the rest of the garbage like I did growing up." Someone brought up the Fresh Kills landfill, and Rich ran with it. It's closed now, and kids are going to grow up skiing down that hill with no idea it was his trash. "This is a great analogy," Rich said. "The Giants are going to ski down the rest of the trash hill."

He even threw in a manifestation, saying the Giants are going to get Jonathan Taylor. Asked if that was breaking news, Rich made clear it was not. "I'm manifesting for my guy JJ," he said.

When someone pointed out that the Cowboys have better Super Bowl odds than the Giants, Rich was offended. "That is such an affront," he said. "The Giants play smarter. The Giants play more efficiently. The Giants close games, with the exception of what happened obviously in Washington, D.C."

Then he mapped it out. Win in Philadelphia to go to 5-2-1. Beat Washington at home to go to 6-2-1. Host Jacksonville in what he called "a measuring stick game." Win in Indianapolis. And when someone predicted a loss to San Francisco, Rich countered that just because everyone else loses to the 49ers doesn't mean the Giants will.

"Why is everybody crapping on the Giants?" he asked. His answer was a list of what is gone. "Ben McAdoo's not walking through that door." Pat Shurmur isn't either. Neither is "Joe Judge and his victory, or his defeat, formation." John Harbaugh is there. "And the Jameis Winston experience had a nice off-Broadway run," Rich said. "Broadway JJ is there now."

What if JJ has a couple of bad games? Does New York go back to Jameis? "Hell, no," Rich said. He closed with a What's More Likely of his own: Jameis gets back in because JJ is ineffective, or Minnesota starts feeling the heat "cuz McCarthy's putting it on them from New Jersey."

"I have my answer," Rich said. "I'm sure you have yours."