The 1986 New York Giants did not get their season off to an auspicious start, losing 31-28 at Dallas in their opening game. After a 21-0 playoff embarrassment in Chicago to end their previous season, it was not what fans were looking for. That team turned out OK, though.

Things were even worse in 2007, when a Giants team coming off two consecutive one-and-done playoff seasons suffered two embarrassing losses in which their supposedly elite defense gave up 45 points to Dallas and 35 points to Green Bay in their first two games. It almost became three losses in a row in Washington when they fell behind 17-3. The Giants stormed back to take a 24-17 lead, though, and then held on in the final minute, stopping Washington running back Ladell Betts (hired this winter as Giants’ running backs coach) on third and fourth down near the goal line to preserve their first win:

That team turned out OK too.

In 2011, it was more of the same. The Giants lost their opener 28-14 at Washington, the key play being Ryan Kerrigan’s pick-6 of Eli Manning when the game was tied in the third quarter. You know what’s coming…that team turned out all right, too.

I don’t know what it is with this team, but through good years and bad, they tend not to get off to a good start. It hasn’t always happened that way, e.g., the dominant 1990 team started 10-0, including an opening win against Philadelphia and series sweeps against Dallas and Washington. That was an exception, though, and not the rule. In the years since their last Super Bowl especially, Game 1 has been a harbinger of the season, and usually not a good one:

• 2012: 24-17 loss to Dallas -> finished 9-7 but missed playoffs
• 2013: 36-31 loss at Dallas -> finished 7-9
• 2014: 35-14 loss at Detroit -> finished 6-10
• 2015: 27-26 loss at Dallas -> finished 6-10
• 2016: 20-19 win at Dallas -> finished 11-5, made playoffs
• 2017: 19-3 loss at Dallas -> finished 3-13
• 2018: 20-15 loss to Jacksonville -> finished 5-11
• 2019: 35-17 loss at Dallas -> finished 4-12
• 2020: 26-16 loss to Pittsburgh -> finished 6-10
• 2021: 27-13 loss to Denver -> finished 4-13

Well that’s ancient history, you say…but the pattern has continued through the Brian Daboll era:

• 2022: 21-20 win at Tennessee -> finished 9-7-1, made Divisional Round of playoffs
• 2023: 40-0 loss to Dallas -> finished 6-11
• 2024: 28-6 loss to Minnesota -> finished 3-14

That’s 12 consecutive seasons in which the Game 1 result perfectly predicted a winning or losing season, and 13 consecutive years in which it predicted making or missing the playoffs. That’s amazing. Last season, the Ravens, Broncos, Rams, Packers, and Commanders, all playoff teams, lost in Week 1, while the Saints, Patriots, Dolphins, Seahawks, Cowboys, and 49ers, all non-playoff teams, won. That unpredictability is supposed to be part of the NFL’s DNA (“On any given Sunday”). Not for the Giants, though.

So forget about the fact that the Giants have the toughest overall schedule in the league in the 2025 season:

All that really matters is the first game, apparently. Recent history says that if the Giants don’t win in Washington in Week 1, the season is doomed. And if you don’t believe that, the following week they play in Dallas, where they never win, so good luck with that.

OK, I jest…sort of. Plenty of other teams bounce back from Game 1 losses, as mentioned above. The Giants aren’t any other team, though. This team desperately needs something to establish confidence that they can turn things around. Unlike the 1986, 2007, and 2011 teams, who had an identity and elite veteran players at or near the heights of their careers who were also team leaders, the current team doesn’t have obvious leadership. Even if that develops this year, nothing beats a few stirring victories to get a team pointed in the right direction.

You can’t tell me that the 2022 opening win in Tennessee didn’t set the stage for the rest of that season, even though it came with a big dose of luck (thanks, Randy Bullock). There’s no way that team should have beaten Green Bay and Baltimore, yet they hung in after falling behind against both teams and prevailed at the end. You also can’t tell me that the 2023 opening thrashing by Dallas in the rain didn’t suck the life out of that team before the season even got going. Same for the opening embarrassment by the Vikings last year. A team with many young players and potential veteran leaders who are new or have only been Giants a short time needs to get off to a good start, or else “Here we go again” starts to creep into the thinking.

Can they start strong for a change, in Washington?

Until last season, the Giants had been Washington’s daddies for quite some time, winning 25 of their past 35 meetings plus one tie. The Commanders flipped the script in 2024, winning both meetings. That’s no surprise considering one team went 12-5 while the other went 3-14, except for the fact that the Giants should have won the first game and were competitive in the second game. For teams whose paths diverged so much, their meetings suggested two pretty evenly matched teams.

Obviously the Commanders evolved over the course of the season, so that Game 2 victory over the Giants is not indicative of the team they were by season’s end. Still, that game is notable for two reasons. The obvious one was the Giants’ lack of a kicker after Graham Gano’s injury, which forced them to eschew field goals and extra points after an initial failed attempt by Jamie Gillan.

The more important aspect of that game was the Commanders’ 215 rushing yards, which allowed them to control the ball for 37:32. That game was the first sign of the Giants’ season-long inability to stop the run. Have they fixed that for the 2025 season? The Giants added Roy Robertson-Harris, an adequate run defender, as depth this offseason, but he probably doesn’t move the needle. Third-round pick Darius Alexander was one of the best run-defending interior linemen among FBS schools last year:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

It may be a lot to ask of a player coming out of the MAC to have much of an impact in his first NFL game, though. On the outside, Abdul Carter graded an above-average 73.8 in run defense in PFF’s rankings, but we’ll have to see how an edge defender of his size fares trying to set the edge against NFL linemen. The other new addition, Chauncey Golston, plays everywhere from the edge to the B-gap, but he is a barely average run defender. No Giants edge defender except the now-departed Boogie Basham graded above average in run defense in PFF’s scoring last season.

The second Giants-Commanders game last season was also a close affair but a very different game. By that time Jayden Daniels had established himself as a budding star, and although the Commanders racked up another 149 rushing yards, they did more damage through the air. Daniels threw two TD passes to Terry McLaurin, who beat Deonte Banks each time. We’ll see whether Shane Bowen has Paulson Adebo travel with McLaurin this time. Of course the new wrinkle is Deebo Samuel. When the Giants last faced the 49ers, Banks and Adoree’ Jackson took turns covering Samuel. Banks was the more successful, giving up two catches in four attempts for only 13 yards.

The other new wrinkle, this on the Giants’ side, is whether a very quick edge defender like Abdul Carter can disrupt Daniels’ passing game. Daniels was clearly affected by pressure as a rookie, though no more than most QBs:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

In their first meeting the Giants pressured Daniels on 34% of dropbacks and sacked him 5 times. In the second game they only pressured him on 24% of dropbacks and didn’t sack him at all. Both of his TD passes came from a clean pocket. This year Washington has added Laremy Tunsil, an excellent pass blocker, to its offensive line.

The other reason Washington won that second game was because their defense harassed Daniel Jones much more than in the first meeting. Dante Fowler Jr., who led Washington with 10.5 sacks in 2024, sacked Jones twice, one of them the turning point of the game, a strip sack that was originally called an incomplete pass deep in Giants territory that led to Washington’s first score. Fowler is now a Cowboy, and Washington did not add a replacement pass rusher of any note. There is still time, though, with several high profile edge defenders still available.

The big difference on the Giants’ side of course is at quarterback. In that regard, it’s worth noting that the week after they beat the Giants, Washington lost 28-27 to Pittsburgh, with Russell Wilson throwing three TD passes. Wilson was only 14-of-28 for 202 yards that game, with a lost fumble and an interception, but he hit Mike Williams for the winning 32-yard TD with a bit over two minutes to play.

The bottom line is that the Giants were competitive in both Washington games last year, as they were in the majority of their games, but they couldn’t close the deal in either one. In principle they’ve narrowed the gap with the Commanders and should have a chance to win in Week 1. In principle, it shouldn’t really matter over the course of a long NFL season, where there are always ups and downs. For the Giants, though, ever since their last Super Bowl, Week 1 has been like the movie “Sliding Doors.” Lose, and it’s like catching a train to nowhere for the rest of the season. Win, and good things may start to happen.