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When the schedule came out back in the spring, it revealed the Giants would have the second-latest bye in the NFL this season. They would have to wait until Week 13 before finally getting a break. It was natural to wonder: Would this be too late to salvage anything, or would it serve as a valuable respite before regrouping for the stretch run?
Well, the bye is here, and it is too late. The Giants are riding a two-game winning streak, bumping their record from 2-8 to 4-8, but they still are much closer to the NFC’s worst (Panthers at 1-10) than they are to the best (Eagles at 10-1). It has truly been a precipitous fall for a franchise that believed it had turned the corner in 2022 only to run smack into a massive traffic snarl in 2023 that nearly brought the entire offensive operation to a halt.
The numbers reflect an accurate and unsightly picture of this team’s ineptitude when possessing the ball. The Giants are last in the NFL in scoring (13.3 points a game), last in passing yards (151.6) and last in total yards (258.7). They are in quarterback limbo, with Daniel Jones coming off reconstructive knee surgery and the real possibility their first-round pick in the 2024 draft will be near the top five, meaning the selection of a quarterback is more an opportunity than merely an option.
The late bye means there is not much time for the Giants to glean much from this season. Of the five remaining games, two are against the Eagles, and that matchup for the past several years has proven to be a mismatch of glaring proportions. Maybe the Eagles will have the NFC top seed clinched so far in advance that they put their B-team on the field in the Jan. 7 season finale. If that happens, are you certain the Giants’ starters can beat the Eagles’ backups?
Most Valuable Player
Dexter Lawrence prior to the season signed a four-year, $90 million contract extension, and there are two ways a player can go after cashing in. Lawrence went the way the Giants hoped and anticipated he would go. He is playing better than ever and can take his place as one of the NFL’s elite interior defenders. He is the top-graded defensive tackle in the league, according to Pro Football Focus, and his ability to push the middle of the pocket despite constant double-team blocks is astounding. He looks like a 340-pound snow plow that happens to be turbo-charged. His 27 solo tackles shows he still takes great care in stopping the run. His 37 hurries, 11 quarterback hits, four sacks and 53 total pressures shows he is an uncommon pass rusher from his position on the field.
Least Valuable Player
Remember Azeez Ojulari? He was supposed to be an up-and-coming pass rusher after he played in every game as a rookie in 2021 and amassed eight sacks. He was limited to just seven games in 2022 but managed to get 5.5 sacks. This season? He is Mr. Invisible. Another slew of injuries has kept him off the field, appearing in just six of the 12 games. He returned in Week 10 in Dallas and had one assisted tackle in 17 snaps. His workload increased the next week in Washington, but his production did not. In 49 snaps on defense, he did not record a single statistic. None. Nada. Zilch. No tackles, no quarterback pressures, no sacks, nothing. In 199 snaps this season, Ojulari has four total tackles, one quarterback hit and zero sacks. This is a former second-round pick who initially looked good and proceeded to go steadily downhill.
Biggest Surprise
It is not a surprise that Saquon Barkley, after not accepting the multi-year deal he was seeking, is team-first all the time, because that is who he is. It is not a surprise Darren Waller hurt his hamstring again, because his injury history coming in was concerning. A surprise can be pleasant or unsavory, right? Let’s spread some pleasantness this holiday season. It is surprising how seamlessly Bobby Okereke became ingrained into the Giants’ culture and emerged almost immediately as an unquestioned leader. He is a heck of a player — 113 tackles, nine tackles for losses, four forced fumbles, two interceptions, eight passes defensed — and is on his way to being a big hit for general manager Joe Schoen as an imported big-ticket (four years, $40 million) free-agent signing.
Biggest Disappointment
The offensive line as a unit has held this team back for far too long, year after year, for a decade. Is it fair to single out Evan Neal as the main culprit this season? Well, top draft picks get the most attention and thus the most scrutiny. Neal was shaky as a rookie starter at right tackle and Year 2 is even more troubling. He has missed five games with two different ankle injuries, and when he is on the field, his lack of movement and inability to translate all his size and power into production is more than worrisome. GM Joe Schoen admitted he went back and watched Neal’s tape from Alabama to make sure the player he picked No. 7 overall in 2022 is the same guy currently wearing No. 73 for the Giants. If this is a miss, it is quite a setback for the advancement of the entire line.
Best Moment
It felt as if the Giants missed their wake-up call on the season. They were outscored 60-0 in the first six quarters, down 20-0 to the Cardinals — the Cardinals! — at halftime in Week 2 in Arizona. What the heck was going on here? The deficit was 28-7 midway through the third quarter. Daniel Jones led a furious and frenzied rally, completing 20 of 25 passes for 284 yards, two passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown in the second half. Graham Gano hit the game-winning field goal with 19 seconds remaining and a 31-28 comeback victory pushed the Giants to 1-1 and stabilized the early part of the season. Or so it seemed.
Worst Moment
That first offensive possession of the season against Dallas — a blocked field goal turned into a touchdown for the Cowboys on a play that cost the team left tackle Andrew Thomas for the next seven games — was a doozy. Blowing a lead to the Jets in the final 24 seconds of regulation was downright abysmal. But for sheer ineptitude, does anything match the way the Giants were left on the Bills’ 1-yard line at the end of the first half in a ridiculous 14-9 loss in Buffalo? They blew it with their bodies and their minds. With 14 seconds remaining before halftime, Tyrod Taylor mistakenly audibled the offense out of a pass play and handed the ball to Saquon Barkley, who was stopped for no gain — with the Giants out of timeouts. Time expired before the Giants could get their field goal unit onto the field. What a disaster. That this game ended with the Giants falling short from the Bills’ 1-yard was a fitting conclusion to a wasteful Sunday in Western New York.
Biggest Head-Scratcher
We get it. The offensive line was brutally bad once Andrew Thomas went down in the first game and there were so many free runners coming at Daniel Jones that he could not take a step in the collapsing pocket before he was assailed. But the QB just looked … off. Shaky. Unsure of himself. He threw five interceptions the entire 2022 season and had six of them in the first four games in 2023. His yards per attempt of 5.7 was the lowest of his career. It was as if he did not trust anything going on in front of him. Sure, the loss of Thomas then Barkley were absences the offense could not overcome. Jones could not lift the performance of anyone. Was it the weight of the new four-year, $160 million contract? This regression, plus the neck and knee injuries, are troubling developments.
Upcoming Decision
There is one coming right around the bend. If Tyrod Taylor is healed from the rib cage injury that put him out of commission the past four games, does he get reinserted as the starting quarterback? Or does coach Brian Daboll go with the hot hand and stick with Tommy DeVito, the starter and winner the past two games? Taylor, 34, is a proven veteran, and a case can be made he gives the Giants the best chance to beat the Packers on “Monday Night Football.’’ DeVito, after all, beat the Patriots despite the Giants scoring just 10 points, the lone touchdown and lone field goal set up by turnovers on defense. There is no doubt DeVito has provided a spark, and his teammates get a big kick out of his infectious confidence, his Italian hand gestures and his “Tommy Cutlets’’ Jersey persona. It makes sense to give DeVito another start and see if he can keep the ball rolling. There is always time to go back to Taylor if DeVito falters.
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