Let us put to rest the past five years of terrible football. That was then, this is now. The Giants’ football product is much better, and the future appears to be bright.
That does not mean there are any guarantees about what comes next for the Giants. They cannot in any way be discredited for the fine 6-2 record they took into their bye week, already exceeding many “How many games will they win?’’ predictions made at the start of the season.
Actual points must supersede style points. View them as a soft 6-2, consider them an undeserving or deceptive 6-2 if you wish. The Giants are where they are because they navigated their way to victory six times in eight tries, and try telling the teams they’ve beaten along the way that the losses the Giants pinned on them were not damaging or legitimate.
Sure, it is an interesting statistical footnote that the Giants are the first team in NFL history to start 6-1 or better and have each of their first seven games decided by one possession. Neither team has reached 30 points in any Giants game this season — the only other team in the league in the first eight weeks that did not play a game with 30 points scored by either team is Green Bay.
What that means is every game has been nearly the same for the Giants. Every game could have gone either way, and the Giants more often than not surged in the fourth quarter to finish the deal. That is commendable and also revelatory — which is why general manager Joe Schoen refused to part with any draft picks at the trade deadline to fill needs at wide receiver, inside linebacker and on the interior of the defensive line. Schoen did not allow the terrific record to alter his evaluation of the totality of his roster.
The record says the Giants are far ahead of the timeline Schoen and coach Brian Daboll set in their heads for the jobs they were hired to do. Their eyes tell them something else. Daboll knows he is not a miracle worker and that he does not possess a secret formula to cajole his team across the finish line ahead of the competition. He also knows he is setting a framework for what he wants the Giants to be about, and that shredding expectations by winning games makes the growing pains far less painful.
Schoen and Daboll did not know a thing about Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley — other than the biographical football stuff everyone else knows — and the first half of the season served to enhance the future for both players in Giants blue. Schoen and Daboll now know the quality of the character of both players, and their performances are making it difficult to consider 2023 without them. There are nine games remaining for both sides to figure out whether contracts will be extended to one, or to both.
Jones has just four turnovers, and two of them — an interception on his final desperation pass in the Week 3 loss to the Cowboys and a no-big-deal fumble on the final play of the first half in the victory over the Ravens — were inconsequential. Jones has not been intercepted in 128 consecutive passes.
Barkley, with 968 all-purpose yards, was second in the NFL to Tyreek Hill (982 yards) of the Dolphins. Barkley is on pace for 1,655 rushing yards and 2,057 all-purpose yards.
Schoen’s first draft class is paying dividends out of the gate. Each of the first eight picks has started at least one game. The first-rounders, outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux and right tackle Evan Neal, experienced typical rookie inconsistency, but both appear headed for big things.
Are the 2022 Giants headed for big things? That’s hard to say. They certainly set themselves up more robustly than anyone had a right to expect, based on the first half of their season.
Most valuable player
Daniel Jones cannot do it without this guy. Saquon Barkley cannot do it without this guy. There were questions when the Giants made Andrew Thomas the first offensive lineman off the board in the 2020 draft. Early in his rookie season, Thomas did not look like a premier left tackle. Take a look at him now, though. Try to find another player at the most important spot on the offensive line who is operating at a higher level.
Thomas is the top-rated tackle in the league by Pro Football Focus — having allowed just one sack, one quarterback hit and nine pressures in 308 pass-block snaps. He has been on the field for all 538 snaps this season. This young man is going to become a very rich man sometime soon.
Least valuable player
Can we split the vote here? The ticket has to be Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney, in any order you prefer. Let’s start with Toney, because he is no longer around (traded to the Chiefs). He played in fewer games (two) than he had hamstring injuries (three), and his body of work in 2022 for the Giants consisted of 35 snaps, two catches for zero yards, two rushes for 23 yards and a whole bunch of attitude.
At least Golladay seems to care. In four games, the $72 million man has two receptions for 22 yards. He has been targeted six times in 99 snaps. Get open, will you! Can he? Tune in the second half of the season.
Biggest surprise
Dexter Lawrence has been a solid player for three years, but he has never been this good. There was no expectation this 342-pounder would be leading the Giants in sacks, but there he is, with four of them. He had nine total sacks in his first three seasons. He is PFF’s No. 5-graded interior defender, and his 26 total pressures shows he is more than just a run-stuffer. His workload is up because there is never a time the Giants want to take him out.
“If you had a Rolls-Royce, wouldn’t you want to drive it everywhere?’’ reasoned defensive coordinator Wink Martindale.
General manager Joe Schoen likes the player who calls himself “Sexy Dexy’’ so much he picked up Lawrence’s fifth-year option before the season even started. Lawrence, just 24, is in line for a lucrative extension.
Cornerback Fabian Moreau deserves strong consideration in this category as well.
Biggest disappointment
For all the pressure Martindale sends, his unit has not exactly created the mayhem needed to truly disrupt a game. The Giants are 13th in the league in sacks with 15 and tied with the Seahawks for first with nine recovered fumbles. It is in the interception department where the Giants are lacking. They have only one, by Julian Love, and that does not cut it. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that is the fewest interceptions by a Giants team through eight games since the NFL began recording statistics … in 1933.
Best moment
The Giants were down 20-13 in the season opener at Tennessee when Jones and Barkley went to work on a 12-play, 73-yard drive finished off by Jones’ 1-yard scoring pass to Chris Myarick with 1:09 remaining. Overtime beckoned. Wait, what is that?
Head coach Brian Daboll is going for 2 and the win? A failed conversion would have meant a 20-19 loss in his first game as a head coach. But Jones found Barkley, who made an outrageous cut to get into the end zone. The Giants had to sweat out a missed field goal as time ran out to beat the Titans, 21-20, and Daboll delivered a loud-and-clear message to his team and Giants fans: We’re here to win.
Worst moment
There is no doubt the Giants’ offensive line is new and improved, but it looked old and rundown in Week 3 against the Cowboys.
Jones was pressured on 27 of his 49 dropbacks and was sacked five times — three by DeMarcus Lawrence, who gave right tackle Evan Neal a rookie indoctrination. There was plenty of hype for the “Monday Night Football’’ matchup of NFC East rivals. The Giants came in at 2-0, but exited at 2-1, mainly because they could not protect their quarterback in a 23-16 loss to the Cowboys.
Biggest head-scratcher
Is this really going to be a completely lost season for outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari? He missed the first three weeks of training camp with a strained hamstring then came up limping with a strained calf during post-practice conditioning running, forcing him out of the first two games.
Ojulari played a total of 60 snaps in Weeks 3 and 4, and had one sack and one forced fumble. He hasn’t played since because he hurt his other calf and is on injured reserve. That means he is not eligible to play until the Giants play the Cowboys on Thanksgiving in Week 12. Ojulari was supposed to be a bookend edge rusher with rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux, but it has not worked out that way. Can Ojulari salvage his 2022 season with a late contribution?
Upcoming decision
After the season, what to do with Jones and Barkley — both impending free agents — are questions that reverberate around the entire organization. In the final nine games, the question is how much should and can the offense lean on Jones and Barkley?
Jones is fourth in the NFL among quarterbacks with 64 rushing attempts and third in yards with 363. Jones using his legs is a key element of an offense that struggles to score and pass the ball down the field. How much, however, is too much?
Barkley’s 163 rushing attempts in eight games were second in the league to Derrick Henry (166), and Barkley is on pace for 346 rushes. He had 261 in his Offensive Rookie of the Year season in 2018. The Giants need everything they can get from these two, but must make sure they do not wear Jones and Barkley into the ground.