Reese: Missing playoffs ‘below our standards’

Steve Serby

You never forget the sights and sounds of a ride up the Canyon of Heroes, and Giants general manager Jerry Reese already has been in two of them with Eli Manning and coach Tom Coughlin.

But in the cutthroat world of the NFL, you also never forget the anguish of a season ending without an invitation to the Tournament and watching others play for the Lombardi Trophy three times in the past four years. You never forget watching an underachieving team that forgets how to Play Like Giants, especially down the stretch.

In and around the Quest Diagnostics Training Center, it is no longer merely a goal to push long and hard for a Super Bowl championship. It is now a mandate. A playoffs-or-bust mandate.

Ron Antonelli

AIMING HIGH: : Giants GM Jerry Reese says there's "a sense of urgency" for Big Blue this season, and falling short of the NFL playoffs is "really not acceptable for us."

"I got a couple of numbers that have been bouncing around in my head," Reese said in a State Of The Giants Address. "The No. 1 number is 190 —that's 190 days 'till the Super Bowl is played in MetLife Stadium over there. That makes me think about the sense of urgency for our team. And the other number is the number 1. And that is, we've been to the playoffs one time in the last four years. That's really not acceptable for us. That's below our standards. That's not what we shoot for.

"We want to put everybody on notice — myself, everybody's on notice that that's not our standards."

The Giants have and will be made aware that it is 190 days and counting to Super Bowl XLVIII.

"We're going to put up in the locker room a countdown, so guys can see how urgent it is to be ready to go every week," Reese said. "You can't let games get away from you and expect to make it to the playoffs. So we've got to have a sense of urgency going into this season."

The Giants need no reminders their stadium, the one they share with the Jets, will play host to the first New York-New Jersey Super Bowl.

"It's a great motivator," Reese told The Post, "to look over there and say, 'Let's be the first team to go over there and play in your own stadium. We walk out here in practice every day, you look at that stadium, you know the Super Bowl is going to be there, so that's a great reminder for us every day."

During his first address to the 2013 Giants on Friday night, Coughlin brought up the site of Super Bowl XLVIII.

"He said that gives us added motivation, but you shouldn't have to look at that as your only motivation," one Giant said. "He even said, 'Even if it's on the moon, that should be where you want to be at the end of the year.'"

Coughlin showed a picture of Phil Mickelson holding his British Open trophy.