Getting back into the playoffs was the minimum expectation for the Giants going into the season.
Four weeks in, it might be time to abandon that thinking.
New York has been an abject disaster this season, sitting at 1-3 through four games. They beat the Arizona Cardinals in Week 2, but otherwise have gotten pummeled by the Cowboys, 49ers and Seahawks.
It’s a far cry from the team that burst onto the scene last year and exceeded expectations, thanks largely to the near-MVP level of play Daniel Jones put on display. He got rewarded accordingly in the offseason with a lucrative new contract, but has since come crashing down to earth.
The NFC East is a gauntlet, with the Eagles and Cowboys proving already to be among the league’s best. WFAN’s Shaun Morash said on the One Giant Step podcast that it’s time to reset those postseason expectations.
“Now you need to stop thinking playoffs, and if you end up playing yourself back into that later in the year, fine, we can have those conversations," Morash said. "It’s still a long football season, games that have to be played whether we like it or not. This is now about evaluation. Did they make an enormous mistake giving Daniel Jones a contract they really can’t get out of for two years? Maybe.
“Is Brian Daboll basically Ben McAdoo 2.0? Oh by the way, McAdoo liked Geno Smith and wanted to draft Patrick Mahomes, let’s remember. Is that the case? Let’s hope not, because the Giants can’t keep firing coaches. As bad as it (could get), it would take basically fistfights in the locker room to fire Brian Daboll. I don’t think you would do that, that would be atrocious.
“And maybe are they victims of their own success talent-wise and making the playoffs last year, and now we’re looking at them through a different light and it’s unfair to Joe Schoen? Maybe, but you know what? Joe Schoen has had two classes where – what is Cordale Flott? He finally made a tackle last night. Evan Neal might be a bust, Kayvon Thibodeaux now has three sacks so, we live with it. Maybe he’s not the all-world, unbelievable pass rusher, but we live with it. And now this draft class, what are we getting out of it?”
The Giants clearly committed to this core of Jones at quarterback, Daboll as head coach and Schoen as GM. That nucleus got them to the postseason last year, and abandoning it now once things have gone sideways would probably be reactionary and shortsighted.
But they have the worst point differential in the league by a wide margin, an embarrassing -76 through four games. At the absolute minimum, if things don’t get better, seats will start heating up.