The Giants were 2-8 after Week 11, on a five-game losing streak, when they shut down and released Daniel Jones.
The Cowboys were 3-7 after Week 11, on a five-game losing streak, with Dak Prescott out for the year.
Since then, the Giants have lost five more and been outscored 140-59 by their opponents, while Dallas has won four of five and outscored its foes, 137-111.
There are a lot of bad or disappointing NFL teams this season. The Cowboys are one of them. The Falcons are another.
The difference is that those teams have picked players and coaches who are able to put a professional product on the field regardless of the circumstances.
The Giants (2-13) cannot.
On Sunday, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll made the Falcons — who stink — look like the Baltimore Ravens team that had bludgeoned the Giants into submission the previous Sunday with two-time MVP Lamar Jackson.
They lost 35-14 to Baltimore. Then they lost 34-7 to Atlanta.
Guess what? The Colts stink. But they will come into MetLife Stadium next Sunday after resting up with family on Christmas — and after some more planes fly overhead pregame — and Indianapolis will thump the Giants on their home field.
And the Giants will become the first NFL team ever to go 0-9 at home in a season. And then Saquon Barkley and the Philadelphia Eagles will be waiting in South Philly in Week 18.
Oh my.
The only logical explanation fans can come up with for how bad the Giants are is that they are intentionally tanking for the No. 1 overall pick they are now favorites to land.
That’s the scary part: they aren’t. Unless co-owner John Mara became a different person and swore off all of the principles he has previously professed.
Where that leaves them is on the precipice of a likely wholescale housecleaning.
All signs point to Daboll, the head coach, being fired at season’s end.
And if Mara were to retain Schoen after this abomination, he would be declaring that he accepts incompetence, poor player evaluation, reckless asset management and a process that tore all of the leadership, character and most of the talent out of New York’s locker room.
Mara cannot do that. He cannot set the bar so low that he accepts a season like this.
If Mara does retain Schoen, he will be repeating the Giants’ most common mistake during these dark days: failing to properly self-evaluate.
They do not know how to look in the mirror and honestly describe what they see.
It is the most common cause when they believe they’re close to winning when they aren’t. It’s the most common mistake when they fire a coach too early, retain a GM too long or step in mud with a player contract.
So if Mara retains a GM who has proven he doesn’t know to how pick good players, build a cohesive team or properly judge the significance of the locker room, what happens next will be on the Giants’ co-owner and no one else.
Plus, Schoen and the front office are too knee-deep running this team to claim plausible deniability from Daboll’s and the coaches’ horrible operation.
Last season, yes, Daboll’s finger-pointing and hot-headed antics preceded Schoen getting on the coaches’ headsets for four games to monitor the toxic dynamic.
But Schoen watches tape with the team after every game. He’s been seen several times in the locker room by players talking to players. He helps make gameday roster decisions.
Then on Sunday, assistant GM Brandon Brown interestingly was shown by FOX talking to backup quarterback Tommy DeVito on the sideline during the game.
Daboll claimed Monday that Brown’s presence was “not because of strategy,” and that “if we’re on the road game and the front office doesn’t have a box, then they come down on the sideline, which has happened, I’d say, a number of times.”
But it’s hard to believe Arthur Blank and the Falcons didn’t have a place for Brown and the Giants’ front office to sit and watch an NFL game. John Mara, Chris Mara and Tim McDonnell seemed to have plenty of room in that suite FOX briefly showed during the second half, at least.
Unless you still believe that all Daboll and Wink Martindale used to fight over was the last slice of pizza.
Mara, it appears, is going to let all of these families enjoy their Christmas as best as they can on a franchise-record 10-game losing streak.
But if he is honestly evaluating his organization — and if he rejects and doesn’t accept this season’s ineptitude as the new Giants standard — by Black Monday on Jan. 6, he will be looking for both a new GM and a new coach.
A NEW QUARTERBACK — AGAIN?!
Daboll said on another lifeless Monday Zoom call that Sunday’s starting quarterback Drew Lock was getting an MRI on his right, throwing shoulder. So Lock’s status is unclear and the Giants are “waiting on where that’s at.”
If Lock can’t play against the Colts, the Giants will be changing their starting quarterback for the fifth time in the last six weeks: Tommy DeVito against the Bucs, Lock against the Cowboys and Saints, DeVito against the Ravens, Lock against the Falcons and now either DeVito or Tim Boyle against the Colts.
Inside linebacker Micah McFadden (stinger) also may miss time, and running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. (ankle) and center John Michael Schmitz (ankle) both aggravated injuries. And their statuses aren’t clear for Sunday, either.
