There’s a lot of optimism both within and around the organization as the New York Giants get set to kickoff the 2022 regular season next Sunday in Tennessee against the Titans.
The Giants haven’t won more than six games in a season since 2017. In fact they’ve averaged just 4.4 wins over the past five years and have logged in losing seasons in eight of the last nine years.
That trend won’t change this year, says Conor Orr of Sports Illustrated. He’s predicting a 5-12 finish for Big Blue in head coach Brian Daboll’s first year.
To Orr’s credit, he has the Giants upsetting the Dallas Cowboys at home in Week 3, their only win in the first seven games before winning in Seattle in Week 8 to enter their bye week at 2-7.
The last nine games aren’t much better. Orr predicts the Giants will go 3-6 with wins over Detroit and Philadelphia at home and Minnesota on the road.
The 5-12 record will earn the Giants another last place finish, their fourth in the last six years. Orr sees this as possibly the start of a possible turnaround.
After watching the Giants this preseason, there’s no doubt they will be better coached, and in that vein we’ve awarded them with some clear upsets over the Vikings and Cowboys, while also getting them wins against an inferior Seahawks team.
My caveat here is that many of these losses will be close, which I think is what the Giants ultimately care about this year. Dave Gettleman did not misread where the NFL was heading in building this roster, but he missed on the players it would take to get them there. So, you have a true rebuild in every sense.
Again, I think co-owner John Mara is braced for this. I don’t think he would have gotten a good GM like Joe Schoen to take this job expecting a playoff run in 2022.
The Giants will have an entirely new look in 2022 and anything is possible but unfortunately, until the public sees the Giants compete with their own eyes, it’s difficult to cite that they are out of the woods of their latest trip into the ‘wilderness.’
