Giants beat the Colts but lost the coveted No. 1 draft pick

Sport

Giants beat the Colts but lost the coveted No. 1 draft pick

2024-12-31 00:10 Last Updated At：00:20

The New York Giants lost by winning.

A rare victory — 45-33 over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday — knocked the Giants out of control for the coveted No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL draft.

So much for Shedeur Sanders’ Giants-themed cleats unless New York trades up to get the Colorado quarterback.

The Giants (3-13) dropped from first to fourth in the draft order, with the Patriots (3-13) moving up to No. 1. New England doesn’t need a quarterback because rookie Drake Maye has been one of the team’s few bright spots this season. But the Titans (3-13) currently sit at No. 2 and they will be seeking a franchise QB at No. 2. The Browns (3-13) should do the same if they stay at No. 3. Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward won’t be around if New York has to settle for the fourth pick.

That’s why Giants fans were angry after witnessing the team’s first win at MetLife Stadium this season.

“The playoff is out of contention, you understand what they’re saying,” quarterback Drew Lock said after throwing for 309 yards and four touchdowns. “But at the same time, it’s nice to say we’re going to go work, we’re going to keep doing this, we’re going to keep pushing, the season’s not over, we’ve got two games left to be able to come out and win this one — that’s the goal every single week, come out and win and work as hard as we can to do it."

Players aren’t going to tank football games. It’s a violent, physical sport and it would be dangerous to play to lose. Plus, there’s too much pride involved and other factors. Guys are playing for contracts and there are few job guarantees in the NFL.

“We’re obviously not tanking,” said wide receiver Darius Slayton, who screamed an expletive about tanking after catching a 32-yard TD pass. “At the end of the day, we have a job to do. This isn’t basketball, it’s not golf, it’s not tennis. Football, you get hit, so I’m not (going to) go out there and just let people tee off on me just to tank.”

Getting coaches on board to play not to win would be a tough task, too. Brian Daboll has no incentive to care about draft positioning if his job status is uncertain. General manager Joe Schoen also could be fired, so this decision should have come from the top. Start a third-string quarterback and bench key starters. That’s how teams give themselves a better opportunity to lose.

The Giants didn’t do that. The repercussions of this victory could set the organization back a few years if New York doesn’t end up with a franchise quarterback.

That’s not Daboll’s concern. He breathed a sigh of relief after the Giants avoided becoming the first team to go 0-9 at home.

“I see these coaches every day come in and are consistent. It’s hard to be consistent in an inconsistent league when things go ... It’s not great,” Daboll said. “We haven’t had a good record. I firmly acknowledge that and I accept responsibility for that. But their commitment to doing things the right way, day in and day out, staying late and putting together plans much like the players when we’re down and we got two wins. We have the right kind of people. It was good to get a win at home, I’ll say that. It was good to get a win at home. But it means more to me for the players and the coaches.”

Las Vegas, another team that needs a franchise quarterback, was in contention for the top pick before winning consecutive games. Now, the Raiders (4-12) are sitting at No. 8.

“We don’t do this to lose,” Raiders coach Antonio Pierce said last week. “We don’t do this for anybody’s fantasy football team. Don’t do this for anybody’s draft projections. None of that (stuff) matters to us. What matters is winning, and that’s all we want to do.”

Even if winning ends up hurting the franchise.

On Football analyzes the biggest topics in the NFL from week to week. For more On Football analysis, head here.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Biden is giving the 2nd highest civilian award to the leaders of the Jan. 6 congressional committee

2025-01-02 20:25 Last Updated At：20:30

President Joe Biden is bestowing the second highest civilian medal on Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, leaders of the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot who Donald Trump has said should be jailed for their roles in the inquiry.

Biden will award the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a ceremony Thursday at the White House, including Americans who fought for marriage equality, a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and two of the president's longtime friends, former Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said in a statement. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the Capitol from a mob of angry Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, or who helped safeguard the will of American voters during the 2020 presidential election, when Trump tried and failed to overturn the results.

Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection. The committee's final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire.”

Cheney later said she would vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and campaigned with the Democratic nominee, raising Trump's ire. Biden has been considering whether to offer preemptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.

Trump, who won the 2024 election and will take office Jan. 20, still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he is back in the White House.

During an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press,” the president-elect said that “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," claiming without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected.

“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.

Biden is also giving the award to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.

Other honorees include Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse during the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women's rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.

He's also giving the award to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.

Other former lawmakers being honored include former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.

Biden will honor four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young"; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during World War II and challenged the detention.

The Presidential Citizens Medal was created by President Richard Nixon in 1969 and is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes people who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”