Whether the Giants beat the Cowboys on Sunday or drop their season finale to Dallas at MetLife Stadium, the result does not matter.
This day, this game, is about more than football.
It is about acknowledging and appreciating John Mara the man, the co-owner and team president, whose grueling cancer battle is a brutal reminder of this business’s often-overlooked human side.
Mara, 71, has shepherded the franchise originally founded by his grandfather, Tim, to two of its four Super Bowls. And he always has poured the passion of a diehard fan into his family’s business.
He is a good man, a family man, a father and a husband and a grandfather. He consistently reads, answers and internalizes fan emails about the team.
And if loyalty is remembered as his greatest flaw during this Giants downturn, that is as good a human legacy to have built in this very public and cutthroat business.
Something about Mara that has always been true, whether the team has been winning championships or competing for the No. 1 overall pick, is that his presence and passion are felt consistently in the hallways of this building.
The Giants organization is synonymous with Mara’s values, priorities and personal touch.
They are unique in the NFL not just because they are a flagship franchise founded in 1925, but because Mara, as the heir to his late father, Wellington, grew into the role of being a conscience of sorts for the league.
He has served as a prominent presence on the NFL’s competition committee and chaired the league’s management council, working alongside commissioner Roger Goodell as a consistent and influential voice shaping the nation’s most popular sport.
He has frequently been as transparent, available and honest as any owner in the league, as well, and treats others with respect. And he is humble enough to answer as often to “John” as he does to “Mr. Mara.”
Mara’s passion, though, is the Giants. And nothing means more to him than a gameday, and the Giants’ fans, and delivering on the daily promise of trying to bring a championship back to New York.
So Sunday matters because it is a gameday, even though this season is coming to an unfortunate three or four-win end.
It matters because Mara is the heartbeat of this franchise, and he is ailing.
And while there is plenty of fan angst right now about the franchise’s fortunes and direction, Sunday is not the time to lose perspective because of football.
Reserve this one afternoon for a tip of the cap to the man who cares as deeply about the Giants as any of us.
Consider that Mara’s brother, senior executive Chris Mara, Mara’s nephew, director of player personnel Tim McDonnell and the entire Mara family — with the support of the Tisch family and new minority owner Julia Koch — and Mara himself are all working hard to try to get this right.
And that there is never any guarantee on how much longer any of us will have to do what we love. And that doing what he loves most is what John Mara will be doing on Sunday.
