The Giants went from being one of the offseason’s favorite sleeper picks to a team that’s suddenly getting left out of playoff conversations altogether.
A few months ago, New York was drawing real buzz as a possible 2026 postseason team. John Harbaugh’s arrival, plus the idea of breakout seasons from Jaxson Dart and Abdul Carter, had the Giants looking like one of those trendy picks the NFL world loves to chase in the summer.
That optimism has cooled fast. After a preseason that raised more questions than answers, the Giants are no longer getting the same kind of support.
In a recent “Around the NFL” staff playoff prediction exercise, the Cowboys and Eagles were viewed as postseason locks, while New York was nowhere to be found. The only analyst to back the Giants as a Wild Card team was Matt Okada, one of the early voices helping fuel the buzz around Big Blue in the first place.
The preseason didn’t exactly help New York’s case. Dart had trouble handling defensive looks, the running back group didn’t look as sturdy as expected, and none of the cornerbacks fighting for starting roles really stood out the way the team hoped they would.
That leaves the Giants with plenty of uncertainty on both sides of the ball, and it’s not hard to see why the projections have swung so hard against them. The feeling now is that this team may still be closer to the start of its rebuild than the finish.
With a Week 1 meeting against the Cowboys coming up fast, the Giants are in a spot where expectations probably need to be recalibrated. Harbaugh wants a playoff run, but this roster looks like it may need time before it finds its rhythm.
There’s still upside here. Dart has the traits to develop into an above-average quarterback, and Carter has the kind of pass-rush talent that could push his sack total well beyond last season’s mark, maybe even double it or triple it. The Giants have enough talent to be interesting.
If they don’t come out of the gate looking like a playoff team, that doesn’t mean the season is over. And if they do surprise people and get back into the postseason picture, it would land with even more force now that the early hype has all but vanished.
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For Giants fans, that matters because Eli Manning remains one of the most debated modern candidates on the board. His rsum has been discussed for years, and now his path could be shaped by a smaller voting group as the Hall weighs candidates already generating plenty of disagreement. The new setup does not settle the argument around Manning, but it does make the next few elections even more worth watching. [Read more 🡒]