Professional football around the New York City area is not in a good place. Nor has it been for the last five years as the Giants and Jets continue to trip over themselves while trying to dig out of canyon-sized pits of ineptitude.
Both Big Blue and Gang Green are 0-3 to start the 2021 season and are facing the very real possibility of sinking to 0-4 together.
The Giants are heading down to New Orleans to play a 2-1 Saints team that defeated the New England Patriots in Week 3 and dismantled the Green Bay Packers — who many see as a favorite to win the NFC — in the season opener.
While Saints quarterback Jameis Winston is experiencing a career resurgence alongside one of the most dangerous running backs in the league in Alvin Kamara, New Orleans’ defense is ranked third-best in football this season.
That doesn’t bode well for a putrid Giants offense that mustered just 14 points last week against an Atlanta Falcons defense that had allowed 80 points over its first two games of the season.
As for the Jets, they haven’t scored a touchdown in two weeks as the Zach Wilson project continues to sputter and wheeze off the starting blocks.
The 22-year-old quarterback leads the NFL with seven interceptions thrown. While the Titans’ defense is susceptible, their attack will be the most threatening unit the Jets have faced — headlined by the bruising Derrick Henry, who leads the NFL in rush attempts (80), rush yards (353), rushing touchdowns (3), and yards from scrimmage (458).
Needless to say, the two New York teams are underdogs, and should they both go down, it will be just the third time ever that the Giants and Jets start a season 0-4 in the same year.
The problem is that the last time it happened was… last year. Before that was 1976.
Such a slow start obviously spells certain doom for both teams.
The Giants have started 0-4 six times in franchise history. They went 6-10 last year after such a start but couldn’t make the playoffs in a dreadful NFC East. Their worst record following an 0-4 start was 3-13 in 2017 and their best coming in 2013 at 7-9. Needless to say, they never made the playoffs in each of the previous six instances.
The Jets never touched the playoffs either in any of their eight instances starting a season 0-4. This could be the third-straight year that happens — a dubious way to start the Robert Saleh era.
