While the NFL regular season schedule won’t be released until Thursday night, we already know the home and road opponents for each team. Just not the order, dates, and times of those games.
And for Giants rookie head coach Brian Daboll, one big factor is already working in his favor — the home opponents.
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Outside of the NFC East, the Giants get these teams at home: Bears, Lions, Panthers, Texans, Colts, and Ravens. Expectations are low for those first four teams. The Colts and Ravens are legit.
Look, the Giants are a really bad team, one of the NFL’s worst. They’re obviously rebuilding under Daboll and rookie general manager Joe Schoen. Nobody expects them to contend for a playoff spot in 2022.
But a fairly light home schedule gives Daboll an opportunity to at least impress fans in person by racking up wins against other bad teams. (Again, it’s possible the Giants could lose to lackluster opponents, because they are not a particularly impressive group themselves.)
Daboll surely doesn’t care about any of this, doesn’t have time to worry about optics. He just wants to win, no matter the setting. But optics at MetLife Stadium — and specifically, fannies in seats — matter for a fanbase that just watched last season’s 4-13 train wreck under coach Joe Judge, who became the third straight Giants coach to be fired after just two seasons on the job.
Bad optics were a big reason why Judge was canned. The Giants last season lost home games by scores of 27-13, 38-11, 21-6, and 22-7. Judge last season went 3-5 at home. So for what it’s worth, he was better there than he was on the road (1-8).
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But the optics of those embarrassing home losses — among other embarrassing things that happened, largely by Judge’s own doing, down the stretch — were too much to overcome.
So in comes Daboll, inheriting a team that has one playoff appearance and zero playoff wins in 10 seasons since its last Super Bowl title. The Giants over the past five seasons are 22-59, tied with the Jets for the NFL’s worst record during that stretch.
At this point, there’s only one way for Daboll to go. And his initial home schedule ought to help.
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Darryl Slater may be reached at [email protected].