In back-to-back weeks this season, Brad Wing was named the NFC Special Teams Player of the Week, a rare feat for any player, much less a punter.
“It’s a little bittersweet that I probably won’t think of those things,’’ Wing told The Post on Monday. “It’s kind of hard to reflect on the year in a positive manner right now when that’s so fresh in your mind.’’
Most fresh in Wing’s mind is the way he went out with a downer of a performance in the Giants’ 38-13 playoff loss to the Packers at Lambeau Field. Wing did not have command of the ball on his foot the way he usually does. Ben McAdoo has called Wing “a weapon,” but that was not the case Sunday.
“It was probably my worst game I had as a Giant,’’ Wing said. “And it’s a tough one, picked a bad time to have a bad game. People ask about the weather; it’s a factor, but it’s not the reason. There’s no excuses, it was on me, little technical things that are easy fixed. It was really three bad punts I wish I could have back, but they were in three critical times in the game. I got to own them, I got to be better. I’ll use those as motivation going forward.’’
General manager Jerry Reese said, “Our punter has really been one of the valuable players on our team,’’ but the final impression was not a good one.
“I think that as a whole, special-teams-wise, we had a bad night,’’ Reese said. “It was a bad night for our punter.’’
The Giants will have the 23rd pick in the 2017 draft. … Ben McAdoo is not wont to second-guess himself, but he sure did not defend the third-and-1 call to give Bobby Rainey the ball late in the second quarter rather than have a bigger running back in the game. Rainey was stuffed for no gain. “Any third-down conversion you don’t get, you want to have back,’’ McAdoo said. “Absolutely that’s one of them.” … WR Tavarres King hauled in a 41-yard touchdown pass in Green Bay and helped his case for next season. “Yeah, Tavarres, hats off,’’ McAdoo said. “He did a tremendous job the last two games, got behind the defense a couple of times. Ran a nice post route [Sunday], focused on the ball. Opened some eyes.”
Eli Manning said losing in the playoffs is never something he gets used to.
“It’s tough,’’ he said. “I don’t know if it’s truly sank in yet. It’ll probably hit more tonight when you wake up knowing that you don’t have anything to do tomorrow.’’