Some people are fans of the New York Giants. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New York Giants. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: “The Giants I think are pretty clearly the worst team in football, and that’s because the other teams at the bottom of our projections have hope.”
Your 2023 record: A remarkably off-putting 6-11, even by this franchise’s standards. We’re talking about a season in which the biggest highlight was the QB3 having a funny name and a funny-looking agent. ONLY IN NEW YORK, OR IN CERTAIN HIGHLY INCONVENIENT PARTS OF NEW JERSEY, BABYYYYYYYY.
Every other aspect of this Giants squad was uglier than your father’s asshole. Coming off a surprise playoff season the year prior, New York was outscored 167-71 through the first six games of the season, losing five of them. They were swept by Dallas 89-17. They failed to score a first-half touchdown until the fifth game of the season. Their “franchise” QB hurt his neck, came back, and then tore his ACL. Their O-line gave up 85 sacks, which is the second-most all time behind the 1986 Philadelphia Eagles. They had more captains than points on the year.
If all of this sounds bad on paper, I assure you that it was even more painful to watch. How about the time these nimrods developed a terminal goal-line allergy against Buffalo? Or that time when they were on the wrong end of the Raiders’ Josh McDaniels firing party? No no no, what about the game where they threw for negative passing yards and gave up not one, but TWO clutch field goal drives to Zach Wilson to lose to the Jets? That was one of those games where constant rainfall was somehow the cheeriest part. Sticking with the goth theme, the Giants also lost to the Rams after their only star on offense dropped an easy two-point conversion attempt. To watch this team was to believe that football is a lousy sport.
And that was just the on-field shit! I haven’t even gotten to all of the petty, behind-the-scenes rancor that has come to define this organization over the past decade and change. Your current standard-bearer for all of that infighting is this man…
Your coach: Captain Sunburn:
That’s 2022 Coach of the Year winner Brian Daboll, who wasted no time jumping into Matt Nagy’s career path after winning that particular honor. About the only person who couldn’t get a decent shot off at Daboll last year was Michael Kay. Everyone else torched the man, including his own defensive coordinator:
But now Washington’s offense was driving, aided by a Kayvon Thibodeaux roughing the passer penalty outside the red zone. And that’s when Brian Daboll started playing the blame game on (Wink) Martindale and the defensive staff: “You’re gonna lose this game just like you lost us the Jets game,” Daboll griped on the headset, according to numerous sources in the building.
That was probably one of the nicer things that Daboll screamed over the course of 17 horrible, horrible games. Both the Daily News and the Post ran postmortems on the Giants season that made Daboll look like Urban Meyer without the résumé. Nothing but tirades, fistfights, and shitty offense. Given the stakes and the pressure, NFL head coaches have to be levelheaded. That’s why Andy Reid can have one of his children cripple a schoolkid and not even blink. That guy knows how to stay focused, and that’s why the Chiefs win.
Daboll, by contrast, responds to adversity the same way I do when I can’t get my router to work. He’s a big sloppy baby, and whatever credibility that he and GM Joe Schoen had coming in from Buffalo vaporized the second they had handed $40 million per year to a quarterback who couldn’t score in Tecmo Bowl, much less an actual football game.
Shane Bowen is your new defensive coordinator. Your offensive coordinator is still Mike Kafka, whose eyebrows look like they’re pointing at a bird.
Your quarterback: Oh no…
For those who don’t remember, Daniel Jones’s 2022 form included a mind-blowing 15 touchdown passes. I just shat a Coke can. Fifteen touchdowns? That’s gotta be a record of some sort. And you’re telling me that this man might still another 15-touchdown campaign still in him? Holy wow!
No wonder Schoen, sitting at No. 6 in one of the most loaded QB drafts of the past decade, passed on drafting Michael Penix. And J.J. McCarthy. And Bo Nix. And a trade-up for Drake Maye. When you have an asset as valuable as Daniel Jones, you don’t just throw him away the first chance you get. You develop him by sending him onto the field, behind an O-line that’s less protective than a Secret Service detail, and watching his transvox ulnarianterior ligament get shredded like a Frosted Mini-Wheat. This organization will be trying to figure out if Daniel Jones is good until he’s 40. In the meantime, he remains so bad and so expensive that new backup Drew Lock is a legitimate threat to take his job. Some Giants fans are even praying for it to happen, and are somehow justified in doing so:
Daniel Jones has passed for 3,000 yards just twice. He’s had one winning record in five seasons, and that winning season was a sabermetric aberration. He gets hurt constantly, and he’s the 29th-ranked starter in the league by PFF metrics. Yet Schoen, who did not draft Jones, is still gonna end up paying him close to half of what the Giants paid Eli Manning over the course of Manning’s entire career. [William Hurt voice] How do you fuck that up? HOW DO YOU FUCK THAT UP? I’m not even a Giants fan and I’m pissed about the whole thing. Daniel Jones makes Dave Brown look like Jeff Hostetler, that’s how dire this QB room is. Fuck.
What’s new that sucks: Because every team in the NFC East loves to repeat itself, here comes god-level LSU wideout Malik Nabers after the Giants drafted him at No. 6. Nabers will go for 1,400 yards this season, get ripped apart by the tabloids for chilling out on a boat, and be traded to a real team three years from now. And boy is he excited about all of that!!!
Let’s enhance on those unis for a second:
What are we doing here? This looks like if Michigan were an NAIA school. These are uglier than the Giants’ regular uniforms, which shouldn’t be aesthetically possible. I’d rather wear a tuxedo in a steam room and so would Nabers, hence his glaring lack of enthusiasm. But look around Giants HQ and you’ll see that stuffy indifference is the order of the day. Just ask Saquon Barkley!
This is how the former No. 2 pick said goodbye to New York: with a phone call that was about as lively as a Zoom meeting at 4:30 p.m. I’ve had more engaging conversations with my Doordash guy. Does anyone want to work for this organization? It certainly doesn’t sound like it.
Barkley didn’t, so off to Philly he goes to haunt the Giants from right next door. Also gone are former backup QB Tyrod Taylor, S Xavier McKinney (who openly trashed the coaching staff before fucking off to Green Bay), and WR Sterling Shepard. Oh no, not Sterling Shepard! Who else on this roster will be able to rack up 130 yards in Week 3 and then never be seen again? New arrival Allen Robinson? AHAHAHAHAHAHA FUCK OFF. Allen Robinson hasn’t been good since Obama was president.
Nabers is the only viable weapon on this offense. The new lead back is Devin Singletary. The new WR2 is Darius Slayton, who has studied Shepard’s career arc far too closely. The backup WRs are Jalin Hyatt and Wan’Dale Robinson, neither of whom matter. And the starting tight end is Daniel Bellinger, who is somehow not a baseball player. Bellinger took over that job after former Raiders star Darren Waller came to town, underwhelmed for a season, cheated on his new wife Kelsey Plum, made a shitty music video about it, and then retired. Super guy. Love him.
In their annual quest to put the finishing touches on a seven-win team, the Giants revamped their O-line—again—by signing two new guards in Jermaine Eluemunor and Jon Runyan Jr., and by potentially moving busted RT Evan Neal to the interior for added … depth? Competition? Spite? Who’s to say, really? Frankly, it’s not even in this team’s best interest to protect any of the QBs presently on its roster. Do I really want to watch Daniel Jones for 17 games, or would I prefer to make a cheap Italian joke at Tommy DeVito’s expense after he comes into a game to beat the Commanders 10-9? I think you know the answer.
As for the defense, the Giants made a rare splash this offseason by trading for stud Panthers EDGE Brian Burns and giving him a fat deal that he’ll never live up to. Burns joins Dexter Lawrence and Kayvon Thibodeaux to form one of the best pass-rushing units in the NFC. Will this defense still finish in the bottom 10 in all relevant statistical categories? Yes. Will they allow five touchdowns to the Cowboys in the first half in both of their games against Dallas? Yes. But think of all the times you’ll hear the color guy say the word “motor!”
What has always sucked: Under owner John Mara, the Giants have long prized dignity over being good. As a result, they get neither. This team has had two winning seasons in the past decade. The only time they’ve had a positive net point differential in that span was in 2016, when Ben McAdoo was their coach. None of the three coaches Mara has hired since McAdoo have been able to replicate the feat and buddy, Daboll sure as shit won’t pull it off this season. He’s a dead man, and so is this team.
The Giants have won four Super Bowls, all in my lifetime, and yet they still give off a fecal aroma from oceans away. I’d tell you that this is confounding, but it isn’t. When your franchise is allergic to joy, to pizzazz, and to scoring, it’s gonna be painful to witness no matter the final outcome. The Giants should be cool. They’re a New York team, they always have a few killer pieces, and they’re not the Jets. Despite all of that, they’re an on-field manifestation of a Roger Goodell press conference. This is a choice on Mara’s part, which is what makes it consistently enraging. Look at those throwbacks again. This is a fucking dentist’s office of a football team.
What might not suck: I heard their Hard Knocks season was actually really interesting. Not that I watched it, but still.
HEAR IT FROM GIANTS FANS!
Andrew:
The most exciting thing this team has done in the last five years is appear in a documentary where no actual football is played.
Adrian:
They went 6-11 last year and I felt fucking nothing. They're the football equivalent of a brown paper bag labeled, "Dead Dove Do Not Eat."
Joey:
My sister-in-law's partner initially didn't want to join us at my in-laws' for Christmas because the Giants were playing the Eagles. When the game began, he screamed in frustration as the Eagles emerged in their blackout uniforms "We never win when they wear those blackout uniforms!" He then proceeded to sulk throughout our family event, resembling a teenager who didn't get a PlayStation 5 for Christmas, as the Eagles pummeled Giants back to 2003.
Jordan:
The organization is Enron cosplaying as Apple.
Ryan:
I’ve just accepted that our owner’s post-Eli commitment to mediocrity has imprisoned us in an eternal hell of Inspector Gadget-ass QBs who only succeed out of pure dumb luck and who have the ability to play well only when their job is in jeopardy.
Jim:
Even writing about this team is a fuckin drag.
Alison:
I should lose custody for getting my 14-year-old into Giants fandom when we live in the Bay Area.
Jon:
It's Daniel Jones. It will continue to be Daniel Jones. And it will stay Daniel Jones until the front office moves on from this Caffeine Free Diet Coke version of Eli Manning.
The Giants haven't had an impact linebacker since Antonio Pierce, 17 fucking years ago. Carl Banks—CARL BANKS—was the last linebacker they drafted in the first round. 40 FUCKING YEARS AGO.
Dennis:
Our QB is still sentient lamppost Daniel Jones. The Bloated Football Lifer leading this team is another bombastic idiot whose ego and competence are inverses of each other.
Thanks to previously undiagnosed case of Celiac’s disease, I can't even drown my Sunday sorrows in craft beer.
Brian:
Malik Nabers is the most exciting receiver they've drafted since Odell Beckham Jr. I can't wait until they trade him for being a "distraction" and he wins a Super Bowl with someone else.
Matt:
Daniel Jones is what you get when you design a player with 99 speed and 0 agility. Videos of him getting tackled should be used to explain Newton's Laws of Motion.
Okicic:
I was at the 0-40 home opener this past year, surrounded by belligerent Cowboys fans and Giants fans who only spoke up to scold other Giants fans to sit down. They handed out shirts and towels with the inscription “Be Giant” to all the fans. I swear the same phrase flashed on the Jumbotron each time something horrible happened to the Giants in the game. The highlight of this game was Coco Gauff waving to our section. We got stuck in traffic leaving at halftime.
Willie:
Hearing how some fans (and how the organization) talk about Jones, I feel like I'm in a cult where everyone drank the Kool-Aid and I'm desperately trying to maintain my sanity.
Rob:
No one will fear Ozempic Brian Daboll, least of all Saquon Barkley.
Michael:
Dan Jones looks like one of the masturbators on the cover of Steely Dan's Countdown To Ecstasy.
Todd:
I'm not one to make excuses, but to anyone who said Daniel Jones sucked last year, my response is: How would you even know? What with getting pummeled every drive, having no weapons and then finally the season-ending injury, why, he never had the chance to suck. Had he remained healthy, I truly believe he could have been the shittiest quarterback of all time. A healthy Jones would have absolutely smoked Mac Jones or Zach Wilson in the Most Suckass Player awards last year, but alas. I have high hopes for this season though. I bet that DJ can underperform even our lowest expectations.
Tyler:
I was in Vegas for my birthday last year. In a city with countless entertainment options, I chose to spend three funereal hours of it attending the Raiders' curbstomping of the Giants, a game in which our most explosive play took place inside Daniel Jones's knee.
I've literally forgotten what it's like to beat Dallas.
Steve:
Already not looking forward to when Malik Nabers gets traded five years into being an elite receiver and a bunch of guys who are racist even for Staten Island celebrate the deal because Nabers was a distraction who didn't play, "da Giants way." The average fan of this team owns seven NYPD hats and thinks the woke left burns Manhattan to the ground every night. We have to watch this team shit its pants in primetime five games a season and it's honestly better than we deserve.
Kyle:
*written at halftime of this miscarriage of football to start the season against the Cowboys*
What the actual fuck.
Andrew:
I write to you in early November 2023. This past Sunday I was supposed to watch the Giants vs. Jets with my girlfriend, a Jets fan whose family has season tickets. Unfortunately that morning, she fell down the stairs, resulting in a broken toe. I spent the first part of the day taking her to Urgent Care, and cleaning up blood.And it ended up being, by far, the most enjoyable part of the day.
Why, you may ask? Because for some godforsaken reason I decided to spend four hours of my time watching fucking Tommy DeVito and Zach Wilson go a combined 4 of 34 on 3rd down in a monsoon, with the Giants somehow finishing the game with MINUS 9 PASSING YARDS. And then we lost because our kicker missed a 35-yard FG. even though the sonuvabitch hit a 63-yarder to beat us just a few years ago.
It dawned on me during that game that I have Red Zone and Sunday Ticket. I cany watch any game in the league. And with streaming and the internet, I can literally watch TV show, movie, or video. And yet I made the conscious choice to watch Zach Wilson and Tommy DeVito attempt to play offense in a way that not even Kirk Ferentz would tolerate.
Matthew:
I went to the Devils/Flyers game at MetLife in February and I had to watch Tommy Cutlets doing his pinchy hand thing in the game intro.
The only joy I’m guaranteed to have in the next two years is watching European soccer fans have a meltdown trying to navigate through the sea of highways and parking around our character-free air conditioner of a stadium.
Gene:
Hard Knocks actually has me kinda charged up for the season. This will last approximately four minutes into the first half of Week 1, when Malik Nabers' cleat gets caught in an invisible divot and his UCL craters.
Ryan:
It is 2012. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys, in the first game of a disappointing season, in primetime.
It is 2013. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys, in the first game of a disappointing season, in primetime.
It is 2015. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys, in the first game of a disappointing season, in primetime.
It is 2017. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys, in the first game of a disappointing season, in primetime.
It is 2019. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys, in the first game of a disappointing season, in primetime.
It is 2023. The Giants get embarrassed by the Cowboys in the first game of the season, in primetime. I write this September 10, 2023, at about 9:45pm EST, down 26-0 before halftime. This first game and the Giants’ season have yet to conclude as I write this. But I know how all this ends.
D:
The greatest player in our franchise’s history is a registered sex offender. Will this fact prevent me from getting angry when someone refers to LaDanian Tomlinson as LT? Reader, the answer may surprise you.
Submissions for the NFL previews are now closed. Next up: Tennessee Titans.
