Close your eyes while I whisk you away to another time and place. The day is January 2, 2017. You are on a boat. No, it’s not chilly, you are in Miami. Don’t open your eyes! You are wearing Timberland boots, black jeans, and no shirt for some reason. Who is with you? Trey Songz is there. Victor Cruz is there. Is that Odell Beckham Jr? Yes, that’s right. You are at the last day of happiness for the New York Giants.
MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
Highlights
After finishing the season at 11-5, the Giants were set to take on the Green Bay Packers in the Wildcard Round of the playoffs. For some reason, OBJ and the rest of the Giants’ receivers’ room decided to spend a few days partying in Miami before the game. Predictably, the team got their asses whooped 38-13. OBJ especially struggled, catching 4 passes for 28 yards. Let’s check in with the Giants since then, shall we?
The following season the Giants went 3-13 and head coach Ben McAdoo was fired after 12 games. The best part though (besides their arch rival Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl) was how they botched their Eli Manning situation. With the team already 2-9 and Eli having started 210 consecutive games, a spiraling McAdoo decided it was time for a change in the lost season. In a show of dominance, McAdoo benched Eli in favor of Geno Smith. The Giants lost the game, Eli was unbenched, and McAdoo was fired. Just a spectacular flameout from a guy who made the playoffs the previous year. Things get worse from there.
What do you get a team that has nothing? When you go 3-13, a high draft pick is the prize to turn the team’s fortunes around. Need an offensive lineman? Well, there’s can’t miss guard Quenton Nelson. How about a sure thing DT to anchor the defense? Hello, Vita Vea. Of course, the Giants really needed a QB. The best ranked talent was Sam Darnold, but future MVPs Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were lurking in the first round.1 What do the Giants do? Select running back Saquon Barkley. Don’t get me wrong, Saquon was/is obviously a hell of a talent, but its NFL Draft 101 to not take a running back this high because it is the most replaceable position with the shortest shelf life. Plus, you can’t have a good running back without a good offensive line and QB, two things the Giants did not have. The most damning part of the selection though was the Giants announcing to the league just how out of touch they were with the modern NFL.
After another year with aging Eli, the Giants were predictably bad again and landed the 6th pick this time. The Giants finally decided to draft Manning’s replacement. Unfortunately, they were a year too late and there was no one to draft. Kyler Murray went #1 followed by Joey Bosa, but this is one of the most horrendous drafts of all time. Drew Lock may have been the 2nd best QB that year or even the late Dwayne Haskins. One guy who was not considered a top 10 talent was Daniel Jones. Scouts Inc and Pro Football Focus had him ranked 59th and 70th on their big boards. The Giants selected him at #6 overall. Predictably again, things didn’t go well.
We’ll get back to the Danny Dimes Show in a minute, but we have to make a few pitstops on the Giants Magical Misery Tour. The 2020 Giants almost made the playoffs. At least that’s what their players and fans thought. Technically it was true too, but when you are 6-10 and need help from your worst enemy to get in, are you really that close? Going into the final week of the season, the Giants were 5-10, while the Cowboys and the Team With No Name in Washington were both 6-9 but NY had the tiebreakers. The Giants needed to beat the Cowboys and the Eagles needed to beat Washington to send this terrible team with a .333 win percentage to the playoffs. The Eagles and rookie Jalen Hurts were leading 14-10 in the 2nd, but the Eagles handed the keys over to Nate Sudeld in the 2nd half to secure a better draft pick. Washington won and the Giants were butthurt and confused that 6-10 wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs. Well, at least this meant a good draft pick, right?
2021 was a banner year from start to finish for New York. On draft night, the pick order had the Cowboys 10th, Giants 11th, and the Eagles 12th. Everyone in the world knew that the Giants were in desperate need of a WR. Thankfully for them, Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith was still on the board and the Cowboys were not going to select him after taking CeeDee Lamb the year before. Then to the astonishment of Big Blue Nation, the Eagles replaced the Cowboys on the draft card. Their two biggest rivals got together on a trade to screw them over. The Eagles took Smith and the Giants panicked. Instead of staying put and drafting Micah Parsons, NY swapped picks with Chicago. At #20, the Giants selected Kadarius Toney. Toney lasted 12 games in NY before being traded to KC and is now out of the league.2
2021 was also the second and final year for the Giants latest coaching hire, Joe Judge. After spending 8 years as the New England Patriots Special Teams Assistant then Coordinator, the Giants decided Judge was their guy. As you could imagine from a guy with ZERO coaching experience on either offense or defense, the Giants struggled in all facets of the game. Every game with Judge was its own miracle to just get a play off, but even that magic ran out by the end. The highlight of his tenure was in the Giants second to last3 game of the season. Facing 2nd and 11 near their own endzone, Judge called for a QB sneak. Then, on 3rd and 9, he called for it again! Almost made it (lol). It was surreal to watch a team have such little faith in their ability to do anything productive that they gave up on second down. After the 28-3 loss, Judge went on a viral 11-minute rant claiming that former players wish they were still on the team and that “this ain’t some clown show organization.” It was. Despite no indication that the Giants were ready to move on from Judge, after this press conference, they had no choice but to can him.
Speaking of clown shows, two weeks before the christening of the Double QB Sneak and the end of Joe Judge’s tenure on the bench, it was Fan Appreciation Day. In their funniest move of the last decade, the Giants had their annual celebration for the fans. After enduring years of losing and frustration, you would think the Giants would do something good for their season ticketholders, right? They were in a giving mood: One Free Medium Fountain Pepsi! Season ticket holders pay tens of thousands of dollars every year to see these losers, but even if they had 4 tickets, they were entitled to just the one drink coupon. I have to add that it was 37 degrees that day.
Ok, back to Jones. After 3 bad years, the Giants declined the 5th year option on Danny Pennies signaling that they were moving on. What does Jones do? Has himself a not terrible (but still not very good) year of 15 TDs, 5 INTs, leads the Giants to a 9-6-1 record, AND a playoff win! They were manhandled by the Eagles the next week. Because they declined the option, the Giants were now in the terrible position of not knowing if Jones was for real while not under contract. They also could not franchise tag him for the year because they refused to work out a long-term deal with Saquon Barkley and the tag was used on him. They extended Jones for 4/$160m instead. He very obviously still stunk. After starting 1-5 the next season, Jones was hurt. A 2-8 start the following year sealed his fate and he was released. Present day Jones is an MVP candidate in Indy but still on the Giants salary ledger as $22m in dead cap. Jones was replaced by a QB named after a chicken dinner, Tommy “Cutlets” DeVito who is now also out of the league.
There are more Giants failures I don’t have time to get into, but our final stop has to be 2024. The Giants were selected to be on Hard Knocks that offseason which meant a camera crew was following team management and ownership through all of their roster decisions, the biggest being what to do with star RB Saquon Barkley. In their defense, they were damned if they resigned a running back to a bad team and damned if they let go of their best player and fan favorite. They should have traded him and star safety Xavier McKinney before the previous trade deadline, but the Giants don’t understand how things like that work.4 Instead, the worst possible outcome occurred, like betting on black AND red in roulette, but the ball lands on green. Midnight green that is. Barkley signed with the arch nemesis Eagles. Giants fans tried to actually make fun of Philly for the move, claiming they overpaid for a running back. 2000 yards, Offensive Player of the Year, and a Super Bowl ring later, it could not have been more embarrassing for the Giants. With every passing Giants loss and every Barkley highlight reel TD, the season got worse and worse. It had to feel like being recorded watching your worst enemy steal your job and your spouse every week for 6 months.
Fun Stats
Here are some fun Giants stats since that picture was taken:
- They have been outscored by 884 points!
- Thier 41-96-1 record is the second worst in football, beaten only by their NJ tenant, the Jets
- 8 of 9 losing seasons
- 1-1 record in the playoffs
- Since 2017, Philadelphia has won the NFC East 4 times, Dallas 3 times, and Washington once…the Giants have zero
- They have had 5 different coaches. Brian Daboll and his .348 win percentage has the second best record of the 5.
- From Eli to Jaxson Dart, they have had 12 different starting QBs
- Daniel Jones has more wins this season with Indy in 5 games than the Giants do in 2 years
- Boat Picture
- Odell Beckham played 16 more games with the Giants before being traded to Cleveland. He was just suspended for PEDs despite not being on a roster
- Victor Cruz only played that playoff game before being released and never playing again
- Roger Lewis Jr played one more season in the NFL catching 36 passes
- Sterling Shepard was a rookie at the time and has had a solid career now with Tampa
- Trey Songz seems to be holding a blunt in the picture and has released 1 album in 9 years.
Record vs Eagles
Since the picture:
- 3-13 regular season 0-1 playoffs
- Eagles have 2 Super Bowl wins and have been to 3 total
- All Pro First Teams
- Eagles: 12
- Giants: 0
- Pro Bowls
- Eagles: 47
- Giants: 13
- The Eagles have outscored opponents by 501 points. That’s a 1385 point difference from the Giants
- The Eagles are 87-49-1, that’s more than double the amount of wins and almost half the losses
Future
The Jaxson Dart era has officially begun in NY. After trading back into the first round to grab the 3rd round talent, the Giants are over the moon about their southern boy QB with the cool hair. If he hits, the Giants are finally back on their way up. If he stinks though, its 5 more years on the Magical Misery Tour.
Posts
- For anyone saying that they could not have known those two would be that good, Baker Mayfield went #1 overall when he was not supposed to at all. Allen was in the conversation. ↩︎
- The Giants did get a 1st round pick the following year in the move but ended up wasting that pick on super bust Evan Neal ↩︎
- Nobody can sound normal using words like “penultimate” ↩︎
- Both guys signed big contracts with new teams which should have meant comp picks. They received a 3rd for McKinney, but nothing for Barkley because they signed a bunch of crap free agents. Had they traded both guys, they would have received much more ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
Leave a comment