Giants Disrespected by USA Today Win Total Projection for 2024 Season

With the NFL’s 32 franchises set to report to training camps this week in anticipation for the 2024 season, the New York Giants are one team on the fringe that is drawing unfavorable (and even unfair) expectations.

As veterans reported to East Rutherford Tuesday for physicals and conditioning tests before day one Wednesday, there is already one media outlet handing Big Blue a lowball regular season projection for their upcoming campaign, the third behind head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen.

In their annual prelude polling for the 2024 season, USA Today gave their projections for each team’s 2024 record. That includes calling for the Giants landing at a 4-13 record at the end of their 100th season of football. 

The outlet’s projections listed 13 teams with at least 10 victories, including three with a league-high 13 wins in the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers. In a real stunner of a prediction, the picks for Super Bowl 59 in February were the aforementioned Packers and the New York Jets, led by Green Bay's former gunslinger in Aaron Rodgers.

Our beleaguered MetLife stadium co-tenant is predicting to take home their first crown since 1969. 

Meanwhile, the Giants received no love after an offseason in which they lost impactful players like Saquon Barkley and Xavier McMinney to the biddings of the free agent market. They earned the second-lowest win total on the USA Today’s chart posted by writer Nate Davis and joined two other franchises (the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers) as teams with four-win prognostications. 

“If you’ve been watching “Hard Knocks,” you’ve gleaned insight into GM Joe Schoen’s offseason thinking – namely to diversify his cap allotment beyond now-departed Barkley while trying to build a roster that will allow the team to provide one more fair assessment of convalescing QB Daniel Jones (ACL),” the article remarked on the state of the Giants after their roster rehaul over the past few months.  

“Maybe the arrival of hyped first-round WR Malik Nabers and a fortified O-line will provide the desired offset. But unless first-year coordinator Shane Bowen’s defense dials in quickly and spectacularly, it’s difficult to find many wins here – particularly before December – in what’s actually the NFC East’s most difficult schedule (based on opponents’ 2023 winning percentages).”

There is no debate that the Giants put themselves in a mixed light with how the Barkley negotiations, or lack thereof, went down. As seen on the Hard Knocks programming, Schoen appeared willing to meet Barkley halfway by letting him test the open market and discover his true value before potentially receiving an offer from the team. 

However, the former running back believed at that moment that he was never going to earn a matching deal from the Giants and that his time with the organization was all but over. He was right, and in fact, the Giants never made a single offer to their No. 2 pick who took his talents to a divisional rival in the Philadelphia Eagles for one million more in guaranteed money than what the Giants reportedly offered him last summer to remain there long-term.

While this decision clearly sickened team owner John Mara and fans who hated seeing Barkley go to a rival city, the truth is it allowed Schoen to allot the cap space necessary to address the real pressing positions on the roster, notably the offensive line, and surround Daniel Jones with a stronger huddle of playmakers to throw the football to. Part of what makes the Giants’ projections unfair is that they improved the areas of their team that were needed to advance their rebuild another step without acting as if they were one player away from vying for a  championship.

Up front, they are primed to fill the guard positions with experienced pass blocking veterans in Jon Runyan and Jermaine Eluemenor after the two holes were carousels in 2023. Those additions will line up with All-Pro left tackle Andrew Thomas and promising center John Michael Schmitz, leaving the only question mark at right tackle as Evan Neal continues to rehab from a fractured ankle and get back on the field for a make or break season. 

Sure, the loss of Barkley hurts Jones in that he had a high-impact player in the backfield to take some pressure off of the passing game. Now, that phase will be littered with options, including rookie Malik Nabers who has shown the potential to be a No. 1 threat to the Giants offense. He will be joined by Darius Slayton, the team’s prior vertical guy, and Wan’Dale Robinson as the main slot weapon to provide Jones with a receiving trifecta he hasn’t had in his first five seasons in the NFL.

On the defensive side, the Giants are loaded with solid pass rushers that will be bolstered by the acquisition of edge rusher Brian Burns who ranked 11th in pass rush win rate in Carolina. The secondary is a point of youth for the unit, but one that with experience in Shane Bowen’s quarters coverage-heavy system should improve and begin to show some promising growth. 

All these pieces will attack a Giants schedule that is definitely challenging, with double games against Dallas and Philadelphia in the NFC East and a wrap-around with the AFC North division. Yet, the idea of them only sniffing out four wins just seems too low for the upgrades New York has made and the return of a healthy Jones facing the other teams that will be standing in front of them.

For starters, the Giants have had a strange dominance over the Washington Commanders who should look to contest that streak this year with an improved roster of their own. It’s uncertain if they were included in the four projected wins, but  the expectation is for New York to snag two more wins from their divisional foe that is looking to establish an offense under new rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. 

The Giants also kick off their season with a home opener against the Minnesota Vikings, who are also starting anew at quarterback and looking for an identity in another tough division. They will see four teams from the NFC South division that are all beatable and that could allow the defense to feast with pass or run blocking metrics close to the bottom of the league last season and mediocre at best offenses. 

If the Giants take care of business against the Commanders, dominate the NFC South division and find a way to take at least one game from their other divisional rivals as well as a team from the AFC North like Pittsburgh, they could easily smash the 4-13 projection handed to them by USA Today. To not would be an even bigger collapse for the Schoen and Daboll regime and likely put them on the hot seats with an impatient owner in John Mara who doesn’t like waiting long periods to turn things around. 

Again, a lot of the Giants success hinges on the health and abilities of Jones, who says he is good to go for camp and seemingly has all he needs to succeed in a make-or-break year for the quarterback. No matter how you slice and dice it, four wins just seems too disrespectful for a group that was battered with problems in 2023 and still managed to scrape together six victories and nearly dance with the postseason picture behind a third-string gunslinger.