The New York Giants: A Never-Ending Tale of Five Wins or Less.
As if quarantine couldn’t get any worse.
It’s been almost two months since the professional sports world came screeching to an abrupt halt at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, sports fans have been forced to settle for celebrity golf matches, a few documentaries, and reruns of old championships. Just little crumbs to keep us from losing our last remnants of sanity. This week, though, the NFL threw us a rather sizable crumb: the schedule for the 2020–2021 regular season.
The NFL schedule release has always been a treat for football fans, but it’s taken on a whole new significance this year. In 2020, the schedule release is a beacon of hope, a glimmer of light at the end of a dark and cold tunnel. It’s a reinforcement of the belief that in four months, our lives will be back to normal, or at least some new version of normal. Yes, schedule day is a much-needed ray of optimism. That is, unless you’re a Giants fan.
For the past three years or so, I’ve made the same prediction about the upcoming Giants season. Five wins or less. If we win anything more than that, we should consider the season a success. By those standards, we haven’t had a successful season since 2016, when we lost to Green Bay in the first round of the playoffs. That was the last season I remember feeling a sense of optimism about the team’s prospects. Since then, the Giants have entered a devastating free fall into the lowest ranks of the NFL.
First, we chose a running back in a draft class swamped with QB talent, consequently hitching our franchise’s proverbial wagon to a washed-up Eli Manning. Then, we let some of our best talent (Landon Collins, Damon Harrison, Olivier Vernon, Odell Beckham, Jr., etc.) slip through our fingers. And to top it all off, we’ve committed our team to an archaic ground-and-pound offensive scheme while the rest of the league has gone airborne. The Giants’ prospects have been grim, and while they drafted unusually well this year, they still haven’t done enough to elevate the franchise.
Looking at their schedule, it’s hard to pinpoint a single “easy win”. Maybe one against the Bengals? Nobody knows how Joe Burrow is going to fare in his rookie season, especially working in an offense as lackluster as Cincinnati’s. Thankfully, we also share a division with the Redskins, one of the few teams in the NFL that might actually be weaker than the Giants. We’ll be playing them twice, and we play Cincinnati once. Other than that, I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for a few close games against the Eagles and the Cowboys.
It’s also worth mentioning that we open the season with a Monday Night Football game against the Steelers. Primetime season openers are always brutal for crappy teams. Usually, the Giants’ blunders are only broadcast to the tri-state area. But this year, when Daniel Jones scrambles on 3rd and 8 and throws a lob into Minkah Fitzpatrick’s arms, he’ll be doing so in front of 12 million people.
Sadly, a 5–11 record would still be an improvement on last year. The fact of the matter is, this team will continue to grovel around the bottom of the league and waste the talent on its roster until it can update its offense and revitalize the passing attack. Saquon can’t carry this team, and while Daniel Jones surpassed some expectations last season (including mine), he’s still a long way from being the savior of the franchise.
Sure, there are reasons to be optimistic about the Giants’ future. Maybe Joe Judge will implement a newer, sleeker style of offense. Maybe Andrew Thomas will give the offensive line the extra push it needs to protect Jones and Saquon. And maybe Xavier McKinney will add some extra fire to a once-proud defense that has ultimately fallen flat over the past few seasons. Yes, there is some hope to be found in this team. But as the whole world knows, it’s hard to remain optimistic when everything has been miserable for so long.
