Ben McAdoo must decide whether to back up Landon Collins’ talk

So how will the recently-turned-40 head coach proceed? Either way, it will be interesting to follow his handling of the team’s elevated expectations, coming off an 11-5 season with a playoff berth.

McAdoo, after all, had his players walking around June’s mandatory minicamp wearing team-issued warm-up shirts with the slogan “Make Gains 1%” written on the front above the New York city skyline. The shirt’s message is exactly the opposite of making a big-picture, division-claiming prediction.

“Make Gains 1%” is a message that each player should try to get a little bit better every day, even if just one percent better. And if every player commits to that steady approach, the idea is that by season’s end, the cumulative improvement will lift the whole team where it wants to go.

So in a way, Collins’ bravado is jumping the gun ahead of McAdoo’s preferred methodical approach.

And yet, if McAdoo’s first Giants team in 2016 had any defining characteristic that made it unique, it was an unmistakable swagger. And while the defense certainly led that attitude on the field, it all started with McAdoo’s first press conference to open his first training camp last July.