The New York Giants have done absolutely nothing to suggest that they are a better team than they were last season; which is hard to do considering last year’s Giants won just six games with a depleted roster.
It shows just how bad the start of 2021 has been for Big Blue, who are 0-3 after dropping yet another winnable game to a bad Atlanta Falcons team on a last-second field goal — which was the form of the Giants’ loss to Washington in Week 2.
Judge has yet to win a game in September, and he’ll have to wait until next season to try and break that dubious drought. Meanwhile, the offense under coordinator Jason Garrett continues to look as threatening as a junior varsity unit — a vanilla, bland attack built on a wafer-thin foundation that is an offensive line.
Garrett’s offense could only muster 14 points to a Falcons team that yielded a staggering 80 in their first two games of the season. And no, Atlanta didn’t magically find the necessary missing links to suddenly make its defense viable.
It puts further pressure on a defense that struggled to start the 2021 season after taking massive steps forward under defensive coordinator Patrick Graham last year. Graham even turned down head-coaching interviews to remain with the Giants’ defense.
Yet his group has folded at key moments — giving up 13 points in the final quarter to Washington in Week 2 before yielding 10 points on the Falcons’ final two drives of Sunday to blow a 14-7 lead late in the fourth quarter.
As he left his postgame press conference following the Atlanta loss, Judge reassured everyone that his team will be “alright.” But bad teams find ways to lose football games and the Giants are doing just that.
However, Judge isn’t ready to shake things up amongst his ranks. Both Garrett and Graham will be calling the plays in Week 4 down in New Orleans against the heavily-favored Saints.
“We’re going to stay consistent with what we’re doing and keep improving as a team,” Judge said. “There are a lot of things we have to clean up coaching-wise and execution-wise, but we’re going to stay on the track with it and make sure we get those things right before making any radical changes.”
Radical changes are just what this team needs or else the 2021 season is going to get out of hand quickly.
The Giants’ next seven opponents are currently a combined 15-5, which is rather skewed because the defending AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs have remarkably dropped two of those games:
- Week 4: at New Orleans Saints (2-1)
- Week 5: at Dallas Cowboys (2-1)
- Week 6: vs. LA Rams (3-0)
- Week 7: vs. Carolina Panthers (3-0)
- Week 8: @ Kansas City Chiefs (1-2)
- Week 9: vs. Las Vegas Raiders (3-0)
- Week 10: Bye Week
- Week 11: @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-1)
If Judge and the Giants keep the status quo that has been the first three weeks of the season — or the first 19 games of the Judge and Garrett tenure — it wouldn’t be surprising in the least to see New York flirting with 0-10.
