Fans of the Giants and Cowboys are excited about opening night, but at least one ESPN personality isn’t feeling the “Sunday Night Football” matchup between the longtime NFC East foes at MetLife Stadium.
“I just can’t believe we’ve got to watch Dallas and the Giants on the first Sunday night,” ESPN’s Steve Coughlin told Scott Van Pelt on this week’s “SVPod.”
“I’m just so tired of that game. What have those teams done?”
Coughlin, who goes by the moniker “Stanford Steve,” has a point in that the Cowboys have missed the playoffs in four of the past seven NFL seasons and 10 of 16, with no Super Bowl appearances since 1995.
The Giants won Super Bowl titles in 2007 and 2011, but they have qualified for postseason play only twice in the past 14 seasons.
Van Pelt noted that the television appeal of the Dallas-New York matchup was due to the size of the markets and their respective fan bases, but Coughlin remained unconvinced.
“I have zero interest in watching that game,” Coughlin responded. “Just seeing those two teams. Giants are going to wear dark jerseys, the Cowboys are going to wear the whites, no matter where the game is. They could be playing in Australia and that’s what the uniforms are going to be.”
This will mark the 15th time the two teams have faced off on SNF since NBC started airing those games in 2006, second only to another divisional matchup involving the Cowboys against the Eagles. It will be John Harbaugh’s first game as Giants coach.
