It's homecoming week for the New York Giants.
While the organization welcomes back more than 100 former players for Giants Homecoming Weekend and to celebrate Michael Strahan's Pro Football Hall of Fame ring ceremony on Monday night, there will be two active alums on the Indianapolis Colts' sideline.
And they won't be in street clothes.
Rather, running back Ahmad Bradshaw and wide receiver Hakeem Nicks will be in full Indianapolis Colts uniform at MetLife Stadium for the first time against their former team.
"That was family to me at one time and that was like home to me," Bradshaw said Wednesday on a conference call with Giants beat reporters. "Just to be able to go back home and be around old fans, and play in front of old fans of mine, and family, just to get back and see those guys, and be in that atmosphere, it gives you a lot. It makes me anxious just to be ready for this game and be ready to go."
"There was a little bit of a transition," said Nicks, also on a conference call. "But…I was a part of team where we won a championship and I feel like I keep those things with me. I don't let that mental part get to me. I just focus on [being] in this new situation and the chance that I have to prove to this organization and this team what I can bring to the table. I think that is what I look forward to each and every day."
Originally a seventh-round draft choice by the Giants in 2007, Bradshaw helped Big Blue to two Super Bowl titles -- he scored the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl XLVI -- and climbed to sixth on the franchise's all-time rushing list before joining the Colts in 2012.
Nicks, a first-round pick, racked up 311 catches for 4,622 yards and 27 touchdowns for the Giants in the regular season from 2009-2013 before he went to Indianapolis a year after Bradshaw. But Nicks will be remembered for a long time by Giants fans for his production in the 2011 Super Bowl run when he caught 28 passes for 444 yards and four touchdowns in four postseason games.
But all of that is in the past.
Both players and both teams are looking to get back on the winning track starting on Monday night.
"It is two great organizations that want the same thing," said Bradshaw, who has six receiving touchdowns already this season (three shy of the NFL's all-time mark for running backs), in addition to 371 rushing yards. "They care about the same things and when I came over here, it wasn't a big difference. You had a good group of guys that had a lot of veterans in it and a lot of leadership. You had a lot of young guys that were making a statement, as in Andrew Luck and a lot of different guys here, T.Y. Hilton, and those guys. It wasn't a big change in organizations. It's just a different team, different state."
