Disastrous start leaves Giants in precarious position
The New York Giants’ 2024 season has officially entered the danger zone.
The Giants are 0-2 coming out of what many thought was a soft enough part of the schedule — at home against a Minnesota Vikings team that went 7-10 a year ago and against a Washington Commanders team the Giants have usually handled in recent years — that the Giants might come out of it with a dreamy 2-0 record. Or, at least a defensible 1-1 mark.
The Giants got blown out at home in Week 1, with their offense so putrid that fans were booing after three plays.
They lost a game they should have won in Week 2. That game featured questionable roster management, sloppy and inadequate defense, and an offense that while fine couldn’t overcome those mistakes plus a couple of its own.
The problem for the Giants is that NOW things get hard.
Each of the Giants’ next six opponents could reasonably be expected to be in contention for a playoff spot over the final couple of weeks of the season.
Over the next six weeks the Giants are:
- At Cleveland
- Home vs. the Dallas Cowboys
- At the Seattle Seahawks
- Home vs. the Cincinnati Bengals
- Home vs. the Philadelphia Eagles
- At the Pittsburgh Steelers
I don’t like looking too far into the future to predict outcomes — things change too rapidly in the NFL. Plus, none of those are teams without flaws of their own. Still, that does not loom as a promising stretch unless a lot of things improve quickly for the Giants.
They certainly recognize their plight. And that goes beyond the fact that only four of 32 0-2 teams (6.25%) have reached the playoffs since the league expanded to 14 playoff teams in 2020.
“I think you just have to focus on the week at hand,” said head coach Brian Daboll. “I’ve been part of some 0-2 teams that ended up pretty well. I know they have here. So again, what really happened 10 years ago or last year, like I’ve always said, really has no bearing on anything this season. I thought we made some improvements in a lot of areas. Need to continue to improve on the things that we’re not doing well at this time and focus on the Cleveland Browns.”
Daboll’s job could certainly be in jeopardy should the season spiral out of control. After a surprising playoff run in 2022, his first season as Giants head coach, little has gone right the past two seasons.
The Giants started 2-8 and finished last season 6-11. Daboll’s demeanor, his treatment of coaches, the way he prepared for the season, roster construction, and game day roster management were all questioned.
This year, we have seen the Giants open the season in embarrassingly inept fashion for the second straight year. Curious roster management decisions with punt returner Gunner Olszewski and placekicker Graham Gano have also left Daboll open to criticism, especially since the latter played a huge role in Sunday’s loss to the Washington Commanders.
Sports Illustrated NFL insider Albert Breer does not believe Daboll is on the hot seat with Giants’ ownership — yet. He wrote:
“ … this is not where I expected them to be two weeks into the season. But I also don’t know how real the job security questions are there. The Maras really like the setup with GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll. I think things would have to get worse for them to consider blowing things up for the fifth time in a decade.”
While I agree with Breer, the potential for things to get worse over the remaining 15 games is certainly there.
Many fans don’t want to hear about patience, or staying the course. Understandably so, as too many Giant seasons have ended before they ever really began since the Giants won the 2011 Super Bowl.
- An 0-5 start in 2017 en route to a 3-13 season.
- A 1-7 start in 2018.
- A 2-10 record en route to a 4-12 2019 season.
- A 1-7 start in 2020.
- A 1-5 start in 2021.
- A 2-8 start prior to Devito-Mania in 2023.
Players, for their part, don’t care or want to hear about all that history.
“I definitely understand the perspective of the fans, but for us as players, it’s a new team every year. A lot of us haven’t been there for some of those years, so we’re just focusing on the next opportunity that we have,” said star left tackle Andrew Thomas. “Obviously, we didn’t start fast, 0-2, but it’s a long season, so we’re just focusing on Cleveland this week, trying to get a win, and we’ll see if our things shake out from there.”
To have any chance to have at least a mediocre season, the Giants need to accomplish a few things. Here are three big ones:
- They need to stop making opposing quarterbacks, and by extension offenses, look far better than they actually are.
- They need to stop taking foolhardy personnel gambles and leaving themselves without viable contingency plans for injured players.
- While the offense was better in Week 2, a 12.0 points per game average isn’t going to cut it. Even the 18 points they scored vs. the Commanders won’t be enough to win most of the time.
The road ahead for the Giants, beginning this week with a Browns team featuring one of the league’s premier defenses, is a daunting one.
The Giants have opened the door to the kind of disastrous season that could, though they don’t want to after so many years of instability, lead ownership to at least think about sweeping changes.
Can they close it? That is not going to be easy.
