The New York Giants are 2-9 after a 30-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in week 12 and the loss to Tampa marked their 6th straight loss and 20th loss since the start of the 2023 season. This franchise has been through it over the past couple of years and we are seemingly a million miles away from the team that went 9-7-1 during the 2022 regular season – and won a playoff game that year. A lot has changed in the last two years and since their 38-7 playoff loss to the Eagles – this team is just 8-20 with countless bad moments including a 40-0 loss to the Cowboys in week 1 of the 2023 season, a 24-3 loss to the Seahawks in which head coach Brian Daboll erupted on the sidelines in what was the Devon Witherspoon breakout game, their former number 7 overall pick asking if fans flip burgers, and most recently – releasing former quarterback Daniel Jones less than two years after giving him a $160 million dollar contract. Oh and their former running back Saquon Barkley is having an MVP caliber season for the division rival Philadelphia Eagles. This franchise at this point in time is a complete disaster. And in today’s video we’re going to break down how they got here, what’s next, and what their realistic plan should be moving forward. Now let’s begin
And we are starting today’s video by breaking down how the Giants got to where we are today and it starts back in the 2022 draft – which was General Manager Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll’s first draft together. They had two first round picks due to the Bears trading up for Justin Fields in 2021 and ended up with two top 7 draft picks. And having two top 7 draft picks is great and any franchise would love to have that opportunity – but you of course have to hit on the draft picks when they are made. The one thing I want to emphasize when we go over the Giants draft history – is I’m not going to have revisionist history and claim they should have taken x player when that certainly wasn’t the case at the time. There is one pick I always had a problem with – even when it was made – and we’ll get to that in a minute – but I liked the Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal selections at the time. Truly.
And to be honest – I didn’t think it was unreasonable for the Jags to draft Evan Neal number one overall back in 2022 because of the tumultuous rookie season Trevor Lawrence had. But the KT and Evan Neal picks were selections I liked because I thought they were doing a good job of setting the tone and addressing the trenches from day one – and that each of these players could be Giants for a long time and that Andrew Thomas and Evan Neal would be a great tackle duo whether it be for Daniel Jones, or whoever would eventually become the next Giants quarterback. Where I had the big problem was selection Wan’Dale Robinson at number 43 overall and mainly over Georgia wide receiver – George Pickens. Pickens currently has over 750 receiving yards in 11 games for the Steelers in 2024 and barring an injury – will have his second 1,000 yard season in 3 years and the Giants leading receivers in 2022 were Darius Slayton – who is fine by the way, Richie James, Isaiah Hodgins, Saquon Barkley, and Daniel Bellinger. They absolutely could have used George Pickens and several teams could have for that matter – and I also thought they reached on Wan’Dale at the time.
They also selected offensive lineman Josh Ezeudu and corner Cordale Flott in the 3rd round and with 5 top 100 draft picks in the 2022 NFL Draft – the Giants maybe hit on one of them in Kayvon Thibodeaux who is very hot and cold and despite having 11.5 sacks in 2023 – he only had 3 more pressures in his second season on over 100 more pass rushing snaps than he did in his rookie season. Meaning – he wasn’t getting home consistently and the double digit sack season is very misleading. Not only that, but when you think of elite pass rushers – Kayvon Thibodeaux’s name doesn’t come up often. He’s not a bad player, but he’s not an elite franchise changing player by any stretch of the imagination either.
I don’t want to spend too much time on Evan Neal other than saying this pick didn’t work out and that there’s a reason about a third of first round picks are above average players at their position, about a third are average starters, and about a third are busts and unfortunately Neal is a draft bust. Again I would argue the process was right with what the Giants were trying to do with the 2022 draft. At least with their first round picks. Right process, but unfortunately bad results with one of their picks. It happens. Every team drafts busts at some point. But the 2023 draft is where it really gets bad for this team and this is where I would argue things really turn sour for Joe Schoen, Brian Daboll, and everyone else involved with current state of the New York Giants.
Now for as bad as the 2022 and 2023 draft classes for the Giants were – the 2024 draft class is completely different. The 2024 Giants draft class is one of the best classes out of any the classes we’ve seen so far. I think everyone would agree that Malik Nabers is definitely being held back by the quarterback play in New York, and if he has even close to league average quarterback play – he should be a 1,000 yard receiver year in and year out. But one of the biggest reasons this franchise is where they are – which is rock bottom at the moment – is the disconnect over simple things. During Nabers post game press conference after the Bucs game – he said I started getting the ball when it was 30 to zero. And to ask Daboll about it.
And you can’t help but feel frustrated for Nabers in this situation because this team – while bad yes – they’re not close to maximizing what they can do and that’s where a lot of my frustration stems from. There’s going to be conversation about whether or not they should keep both Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen and the case to keep them would largely be based off of their 2024 draft class and use that as a stepping stone for the Giants future and to go from there. But I’m at the point where I think they should let both of them go because if they were to keep both of them – I think this situation would be very similar to the cycle of what the Chicago Bears have done over the last several years. Have a GM and head coach on their last legs, draft a rookie quarterback in the first round, and when you not surprisingly have a losing record with a rookie quarterback – because let’s be honest – the likelihood you have a losing record with a rookie quarterback is far greater than the chance of having a winning record with a rookie quarterback – you get fired.
That inevitably wastes a year of everybody’s time and in a field where jobs do not last forever and the average length of careers is around 3 seasons. And for as good as the 2024 draft class is for the Giants – due to selections like Tyler Nubin, Dre Phillips, Theo Johnson, and Tyrone Tracy – I am a firm believer that the damage is done. Obviously we all know giving Daniel Jones the big contract after the 2022 season he had was a mistake – but I think that mistake will save other teams from doing the exact same thing. And the reason we bring that up is because Sam Darnold is currently in the midst of a great season and there’s almost certainly going to be a team that offers him a lot more money than they probably should. But I don’t expect Sam to receive a 4 year contract with 2 full years in guarantees due in large part to the Daniel Jones contract and everything that has transpired after the Daniel Jones contract.
This team was 2-3 at a point after beating the Seattle Seahawks 29-20 in week 5 – and in the 6 games since then – they have scored just 74 points which equates to just 12.3 points per game. 22 of those 74 points came in a game against the Commanders and this offense right now is downright terrible. I know Andrew Thomas being done for the year obviously complicates things, but the offense was bad before Andrew Thomas got hurt, and it was going to be bad even after Andrew Thomas got hurt. And when you look at the Giants remaining schedule – I don’t know how you can confidently say they are going to win any game out of their remaining 6. I would like to thing they’re not going to finish the year on a 12 game losing streak and hope they can pull out one or two games – but they should not be favored in any game for the remainder of the year. This is a bad football team, and it’s the culmination of multiple drafts gone wrong and multiple high draft picks along the offensive line missing too.
I hope you enjoyed today’s article and if you did there is a video breaking everything down with the New York Giants linked below! Thank you again for reading and have a great day!
