The New York Giants are the NFL’s punching bag and its punchline.
Saquon Barkley is the dominant force Dave Gettleman promised he would be, a 2,000-yard back chasing a Hall of Fame destiny – not for the Giants, mind you, but for the Eagles.
The Commanders are the darlings of the league with Jayden Daniels – the quarterback for whom their coach, Brian Daboll, said he would trade last spring if given the chance. They won four games last season and now stand two wins from hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy.
Yes, one team between Washington and Philadelphia – two of their three NFC East rivals – will be in Super Bowl LIX, to be determined in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game.
This is the Giants’ reality, and as much as the current climate might force some in the organization and their fans into a dark room until it’s all over, don’t let that be the reaction despite how appealing that may be in the moment.
Rather, here’s what the Giants must do in order to not just survive these difficult times, but figure out a way to thrive in the aftermath: Embrace it all. The pain. The embarrassment. The mocking. Everything.
Because when you win three games, with double-digit losses for nine of the last 11 seasons, the ridicule is going to come at every turn. Can’t argue with the results on the scoreboard and in the standings, so don’t bother.
Something else that is pointless defending, mostly because no one wants to listen: Barkley is gone, and he’s not coming back. At least not for a minute.
Just in case the Giants and their fans have forgotten, everyone around the NFL will gladly continue to remind you every painstaking step of the way as the Eagles make a run to the Super Bowl.
Barkley’s Eagles and Daniels’ Commanders will play Sunday for a trip to the Big Game in the Big Easy.
So woe is the Giants. Here’s my take: stop feeling sorry for yourselves and use this as fuel for an improbable rally similar to the way the Commanders went from the bottom of the NFL to where they are now in a calendar year.
Remember when Ben Johnson, the hottest candidate on the market, left the Commanders at the coaching altar a year ago to stay with the Detroit Lions. The Commanders pivoted to Dan Quinn and were the ones that ended Johnson’s stint as offensive coordinator in Detroit on Saturday, paving the way for Johnson to end up in Chicago as the head coach of the Bears on Monday.
Turnarounds happen in the NFL when you least expect them. What separates hope and hopeless is often blind faith, not to mention a conviction to follow through on a plan, even when that takes a team down a road that is not the most popular.
This is going to be challenging for the Giants, but digging out from a decade of despair was never going to be easy.
There are many within a sports landscape that find pleasure in the misery of others, which typically coincides with the winning and losing of the playoff games being played.
For some reason, there is perverse enjoyment in all of this for some. The Giants are the proverbial playoff piñata and critics have loved taking swings for months now.
You saw those photos of John Mara from “Hard Knocks” pop up all over social media again Sunday night, as if the piling on would reverse the decision from Giants’ ownership to bring Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen back for a fourth season.
Yeah, Mara’s still losing sleep – the joke’s on him and his team, so they say. It’s a riot. You’d heard that one before? Oh well. Bathe in the perceived humiliation.
Truth is, the Giants better get over it, even if their fans or reporters refuse to let up. Saquon’s gone. If you still feel the need to waste time sulking, have at it. As Michael Strahan once famously told his teammates in a pregame huddle on the run to Super Bowl XLII, “The past is the past” with some colorful language sprinkled in for lasting effect.
This Giants’ mess was created by a decade of bad hires and decisions that were even worse, creating a dysfunctional setup weighed down even more by misplaced ego, the absence of a shared vision between coach and GM and an unwillingness to make bold decisions for the long term, which – like it or not – exists now.
Will this work? Nobody knows for sure, but the Giants are going all George Costanza “chicken salad on rye, untoasted” rather than “tuna on toast.”
These circumstances were inherited by Daboll and Schoen, and whatever missteps in the last three years that resulted in where the Giants are today, it’s all become part of the losing a team must dig out from under.
Finding a way to break things down and build back from this was always going to be messy. The way things have gone for the Giants, it’s understandable to feel as though every move made has backfired in the immediacy of it all.
Letting Barkley and Xavier McKinney go. Sticking with Daniel Jones. Trading Leonard Williams and not re-signing Julian Love. Firing offensive line coach Bobby Johnson, who is now in Washington and getting praise for a job well done.
There is a big picture at play for the Giants, but the short term has been painful. Admittedly, Schoen and Daboll may not get there. The clock is ticking.
That does not mean they can’t get this franchise to where it needs to go, and on this current path; it’s just going to take a lot of work, strong belief in the process and in some circles a benefit of the doubt that only a select few are willing to give in the absence of tangible success.
Because an honest evaluation of where the roster is at and where they need to go showed Schoen’s decision to part ways with Barkley wasn’t nearly as foolish as everyone is suggesting right now. It’s driven by positional value and asset allocation, and not about production just for this season, but three.
Could they have kept their best offensive player? Sure. Would Barkley be the player he was with the Eagles? Not even close. You would be hearing just as much criticism about the failure to win with Barkley after paying him, maybe even more than what is being said now about the losing without him.
The Giants never got that chance to draft Daniels, in part because they won three too many games down the stretch of the 2023 regular season. Blaming Tommy DeVito – an undrafted rookie quarterback who had not taken a snap with the first-team offense in practice until November – for ruining that dream is ridiculous.
These are emotional times, and the insistence to blame one team’s failure when lauding another team’s success has this organization in the crosshairs repeatedly. That’s the low hanging fruit in situations like this, and to be honest, it’s fair to question why so many are taking shots at the only team that has won a Lombardi in each of the past four decades.
Then again, maybe that’s the answer. The past is the past, and few celebrate theirs more than the Giants.
If Schoen and Daboll get the Giants a new quarterback and he hits, keep building off what was a promising offseason in spite of what Barkley is doing elsewhere, maybe we’re talking about them in a different light this time next year. We won’t know until we get there.
As the rest of the NFL continues to mock the Giants, with reporters and fans and talking heads taking their shots, all with a verbal jab and a snicker, the only response that should matter right now is what they do on the field to stop it.
This time last year, just about everyone was laughing at Washington when Johnson declined a second interview as team brass was about to board a flight to meet with him in Detroit.
No one back then would have taken the idea seriously that, a year later, downtrodden teams would be going into this offseason hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Commanders, – likely not even the Commanders themselves.
Who’s laughing now?
