The Giants might finish with a 2-15 record in their franchise’s 100th season.
They might not win another game.
They are 2-10 with seven straight losses, and it’s realistic that they could lose 12 in a row to end the year.
That’s especially true now that defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence seems like he’s out for the season with a dislocated elbow that Brian Daboll called a “long-term” injury on Friday.
Rookie tight end Theo Johnson also may be done for the season with a foot injury, Daboll said. That explains Johnson’s locker room outburst after Thursday’s defeat at Dallas.
There is no obvious win remaining on the schedule.
The Saints at home: They crushed the Tommy DeVito-led Giants last year in New Orleans.
The Ravens at home: Lamar Jackson might hang 50 points at MetLife Stadium.
The Falcons on the road: Atlanta can score points; the Giants can’t.
The Colts at home: How many yards will Indy running back Jonathan Taylor have?
The Eagles in Philly: Saquon Barkley could set the NFL rushing record and clinch the league MVP award in that season finale.
How could Joe Schoen and Daboll survive this into Year Four? That’s a rhetorical question.
John Mara wouldn’t be able to rationalize anything but wholesale change with a 2-15, 3-14 or 4-13 final record, assuming he’s able to wait until the season is over.
When the Chicago Bears fired head coach Matt Eberflus on Friday after he conducted a morning press conference, in fact, it wasn’t a stretch to wonder if the same might happen to Daboll before the day was up.
Because even waiting until after Week 18 will be impossible for Mara if the fans’ apathy leads to an empty MetLife Stadium for these three remaining home games. And it’s trending strongly in that direction.
“I’m a season ticket holder. I won’t be going to any more games this year, and I’ll be looking to unload my PSLs in the offseason,” Giants fan Dan H. said Thursday night on the Bleav Network’s Talkin Ball’ with Pat Leonard postgame live podcast.
Daboll sounds like a coach who knows it’s over and is just playing out the string.
Asked if he owed it to the history of the Giants’ franchise to turn this around, he said: “We’ll do everything we can do to go out there and play well and get a win. That’s our focus.”
He said his postgame insistence that he is not worried about his job security was a matter of sticking to what he can control.
“Yeah, I think you focus on your team,” he said. “You focus on our staff, our coaches, players and going out there to get the kind of performance and results we all want.
“I have confidence in our people,” he added. “Obviously not where we want to be, not by any stretch of the imagination, so we’ll just keep working hard to fix the things we need to fix.”
There is bad football, though, and then there is historically bad football. The Giants are the latter.
They are the worst team in the NFL.
Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day loss to the Cowboys made them the first team officially eliminated from playoff contention in 2024.
They are the lowest scoring team (15.3 points per game) in the league. They had 131 net passing yards Thursday.
Quarterback Drew Lock was sacked six times and hit 14 more. That’s 20 total hits in one game, plus three tackles on running plays when he escaped the collapsing pocket twice and ran the Tush Push once.
Their defense has gone 11 straight games without an interception, setting a new NFL record of futility.
They passed the 1976-77 San Francisco 49ers and the 2017 Oakland Raiders to stand alone.
They allow a league-worst 5.1 yards per carry to opposing offenses. The defense has only one sack in the past four games.
The locker room already exploded in frustration after last Sunday’s 30-7 blowout loss to the Bucs.
They are the NFL’s only winless team (0-6) at home.
The only thing keeping many of the players going is simply their independent resolve.
“It’s an individual thing,” edge rusher Brian Burns said. “I can only speak for myself. My motivation comes from inside and basically my pride. I’m not just gonna go out there and lay down. I’ve been playing banged-up all year. It’s just not in me to lay down to nobody.”
Even so, it’s hard to be confident that the Giants will get another result until they actually do it.
“It’s pretty difficult,” wide receiver Malik Nabers said after Thursday’s loss. “We gotta try to find a way to stop losing, try to get some wins.”
But here’s the scary part: They’ve already been searching for a way to win another game for a while now.
They can’t find it. It doesn’t appear to exist.
That’s how low the Giants have fallen: to rock bottom.
