The Giants can tell themselves they would never be ready to compete for a playoff berth this season.
Not with freshman head coach Joe Judge feeling his new team figuring out what’s on the roster and what to add.
Not with quarterback Daniel Jones trying to find his position in his second NFL season.
Not with a rebuilt attack line and many new defenses.
And certainly not once did they lose the running back of Saquon Barkley, their best player, to a knee injury that ended the season at the start of the second game of the season.
But while the Giants (5-9) play in the Ravens (9-5) on Sunday, they will be confronted with the sobering reality of an amazing and unexpected missed opportunity.
Two weeks after taking the wheel to win the NFC East, feeling good about their season and playing post-season games for the first time since 2016, the Giants will be eliminated on Sunday.
If the Giants lose to the Ravens, who prefer 10 points, and the Washington Football Team beats the Panthers (4-10), Washington would win the division and the Giants would play a garbage-time season finale at home against the Cowboys on January 3.
When and if that scenario occurs, the Giants are only themselves to blame.
“I don’t think our progress as a team will necessarily be measured in making the playoffs,” Judge said Monday. “I’m not downplaying the playoffs. We’re all here to compete. We’re all here for the highest price in all sports. We all know what that is. At the same time, I firmly believe in just keeping our sights focused. on what the immediate goal is and that the long-term goal will take care of itself. ”
The problem is, the long-term goal, a playoff berth, now looks like a long shot – largely because they can’t score points, which is a prerequisite for winning in the NFL.
The Giants’ flawed offense has yielded 13 points in the past two games – a 20-6 home loss to the Browns last Sunday night and a 26-7 home loss to the Cardinals the week before.
Only the Jets have scored fewer points at 14.7 points per game than the Giants, who averaged 17.4. And sharing the same sentence with the Jets will never result in a compliment.
The math for the Giants on Sunday is simple: they will almost certainly not win if they score on their average point production this season.
The Giants scored 20 or more runs in just six of their 14 games. In four of their games they failed to get double digits. They have scored 30 points in just one match.
Conversely, the Ravens, who average 28.8 points per game, have scored 40 and 47 points in each of their past two games. They have scored 30 or more runs in seven of their 14 games and only twice failed to score at least 20.
“As coaches, we have to make sure we always put our players in the right position,” Judge said on Thursday. “That’s number one. Number two, if the plays are there to be made, we have to make them. We’ve got them. put ourselves in position several times. For various reasons we have to keep going and finish rides better. When we get down there, we have to get points. “
Tight-ends coach Freddie Kitchens, who last week served as offensive coordinator while Jason Garrett worked on the COVID-19 protocols, said on Thursday that he believes the violation is “ close, ” but he quickly added: “ But closing doesn’t matter. It’s all about the end result. ”
The Giants know exactly what they’re getting into with the Ravens, who will punch them in the mouth as soon as they get off the team buses.
That’s what John Harbaugh’s teams do: they play more physically than you. And more often than not, they win.
The job for the Giants starts there: Be more physical than the Ravens on either side of the ball, or watch their flickering hope of winning the NFC East fade to black.
“We need this to be the most physical game of the year,” Giants defender Patrick Graham said Thursday. “That’s how Baltimore wants it. That’s what you want it to be. Let’s see who is at the end. state. ”