So, with COVID-19 sweeping away all live sporting events, we find more and more refuge in virtual football events, such as the NFL Draft and, now, the unveiling of schedules for all 32 teams.
The Jets got harpooned entering the 2020 NFL season, with the second-hardest schedule, their foes posting a .533 winning percentage (136-119-1) last year.
Things are a bit better down the halls of MetLife Stadium, where the Giants face opponents with an aggregate 2019 record of 123-132-1, for a .482 winning percentage. It gives the G-Men the seventh-softest schedule in the league.
The Giants play five games against teams that made the playoffs last year, including the clubs with the two best records in 2019 (49ers, Ravens). They are also playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — the team that added Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski — the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that routinely makes the playoffs, and the Los Angeles Rams, the NFC representative in Super Bowl LIII just two seasons ago.
They play three games against teams that went 8-8 last season — the Dallas Cowboys (twice) and Chicago Bears. And two of the weaker teams on the Giants schedule — the Washington Redskins and Arizona Cardinals — are expected to be better in 2020.
So, no matter where the Giants schedule is ranked, it's still stuffed with landmines. They play all the teams in the NFL's best division, the NFC West, and all the teams in the AFC North, which includes Lamar Jackson and the pyrotechnic Ravens — on the road, no less — after a 14-2 mark in 2019. The Steelers get Big Ben Roethlisberger back, making them instantly more formidable. And even the lowly Browns expect a bump in record now that they canned head coach Freddie Kitchens, who had never even been an offensive or defensive coordinator before he got the top job.
The only truly terrible team on the Giants' slate of 16 games is the Cincinnati Bengals — the club with the league's worst record (2-14) in 2019 and the top pick in the latest NFL Draft in QB Joe Burrow.
The Giants season will essentially be decided halfway through, or nine games, to be exact. They open on Sept. 14 with a home game against Pittsburgh. Then they play three of their next four on the road, against the Bears, Rams and Cowboys, with a daunting Sept. 27 home game against the Niners. Then they play the Redskins twice in their next four games, bookends around a road game against the Eagles and home game against Tampa Brady. If the Giants can claw through those eight games with a 4-4 record, they face the Eagles, at home, before their bye week.
If the Giants slide into their Nov. 22 off week with a 5-4 record, they can stretch it to 6-4 against the Bengals. And then still have home games left against the Cardinals, Browns and Cowboys, and two brutal road games against Baltimore and Seattle. If they split those six games, they finish the season at 9-7, which would be sublime, ahead of most projections and perhaps a short hair from miraculous, considering they went 4-12 last season.
Right now, however, is the utopian time, when all NFL teams are undefeated and belching bromides about playing in Super Bowl LIV, at Raymond James Stadium. We don't have to dissect the Giants' gruesome defense, their variables on the offensive line,or whether we get Daniel Jones, the fumbling machine, or Danny Dimes, the TD-tossing machine. We can forget that Joe Judge is wearing the head coach's headset for the first time, and that the NFL has legislated parity so purely that most teams get sucked into that vortex of mediocrity.
This week, things look OK for Big Blue. This season is another story, for another time.
