If there are cracks, they will surface.
If there are signs, they will be revealed.
There is no way to completely hide discord when it is present within a team.
It can take hold as losing mounts and once it does, good luck trying to rid the locker room of the negative vibes.
The Giants are in the latter stages of a losing season.
For months, they failed to deliver on the field, losing eight of their first 10 games.
Coming out of their bye week and carrying a two-game winning streak into Monday night’s meeting with the Packers at MetLife Stadium, the Giants are on something of an upswing.
That beats the alternative.
It is too little, too late, of course, and the players who have been on the scene as the Giants sank to the bottom of the NFC East were tasked with hanging together as their season was unraveling.
“We all work for each other, we don’t really point fingers, that’s not what we do in his organization,’’ second-year cornerback Cor’Dale Flott told The Post. “We work with each other, we’re there for our brothers and however this s–t go, we got each other’s back and we’re going to stay strong until the end.’’
Will they?
Staying strong until the end might be exceedingly difficult when it has been obvious for some time that the end will come after the Week 18 home game.
Tommy DeVito moved in at quarterback and gave the team a spark in victories over the Commanders and Patriots, then the Giants had a full week off to get away from football.
Returning to a season filled with promise can be invigorating.
Returning to finish out the final games and then part ways again is more of a challenge.
The Packers are on a roll, with three consecutive victories vaulting them into an NFC wild-card playoff position.
It is all out there for them.
The Giants are not yet mathematically eliminated.
Players have mentioned this as adding to their motivation, and if that is true, fine, as long as there is a sense of reality mixed in with the highly unlikely scenarios available to them.
“I know it just sounds like I’m just beating a dead horse when I’m saying it, but I truly, truly believe that,’’ Saquon Barkley said. “I’m one of those guys that if I’m in a fight and I got my butt kicked for 11 rounds, the 12th round, in my head, if I still compete, if I could knock you out and get the win, then that’s how it’s going to happen. So, I kept saying until we’re completely out of this thing I still believe. Even when you’re out of this thing, you’ve still got a job to do. It’s not too hard to look at. I don’t think it’s too hard to figure it out.’’
There has to be more to play for, though.
The Giants went into the weekend in the No. 12 spot in the conference.
As they play to avoid elimination, they also play for one another.
It can sound trite, but there is no evidence to suggest this is not the case.
“Obviously, the goal is to make the playoffs, make a push, but I feel like if you play for each other, that’s going to knock away any other distraction,’’ cornerback Adoree’ Jackson said. “You keep the main thing the main thing. I think at this time, [former Titans defensive coordinator] Dick LeBeau, my coach my rookie year, would always say, ‘My fear that I had was not around any opponent, it was letting my brothers down.’ I feel like you have that mantra, like, ‘OK, I want to play for my brother, I don’t want him to be disappointed,’ because we all hold each other accountable.
“No matter if you do something good, you want to hear your teammates praise you. If you do something bad, obviously, you want them to tell you you did something wrong. Having that instinct and having that mindset, like, man, I want to make sure that I’m doing everything I can, so my brother doesn’t smack his teeth or have to get on me. It comes with anything like having a big brother, your father, your cousin, anybody that’s related to you. You don’t want them to be able to say something to you and always want to stay on your P’s and Q’s. So, playing for each other, I would say would be the best example of what we can do these last five games.’’
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