The last time NYG started 0-3, the team was the worst it has ever been — literally. Can the 2020 NY Giants avoid setting the bar even lower?
Now that the NY Giants are 0-3 to start the season, the team is officially off to the worst start since 2017. That year, the team finished 3-13 – the worst 16-game record in franchise history.
In the three weeks that the Giants have suited up and taken the field, fans have seen enough to realize this is a bad team. From top to bottom, offense, defense, and special teams, the talent and effort the Giants have put forth is worrying.
Even when Saquon Barkly, the most talented Giants’ player on the roster, was on the field this season his skills could not keep the team afloat.
But he is gone this season. So too is any hope to remain competitive. The new hope for this team is to lose fewer than 13 games.
Since 2017, the Giants have won just 12 games, putting them behind the Cleveland Browns’ 15 wins over that same span, good for worst in the entire NFL.
The Browns went 0-16 in 2017, making them the second team in NFL history to go winless in a 16-game schedule.
NYG fans shouldn’t have been much prouder of the 2017 Giants. Coming off an 11-5 season and a playoff berth the prior year, Big Blue didn’t record a win itself until Week 6 of that year.
That the NY Giants can finish even worse this year is a distinct possibility, but it isn’t the only one.
This season marks the third time in the past ten seasons that the G-Men have started 0-3. And while 2017 ended in disaster, the time before that, in 2013, the team at least remained competitive.
The 2013 Giants finished with a 7-9 record, which at this point would be a redeemable season for this team.
Redemption is needed. In the past ten seasons, the NY Giants have only three winning seasons: 2016 (11-6); 2012 (9-7); 2011 (9-7). Only two of those seasons yielded playoff berths.
And while that 2011 team won the Super Bowl, it’s a bit too far removed to retain any optimism from.
Salvaging this season is the only imaginable reason to keep faith within Dave Gettleman’s ability to evaluate talent and Joe Judges’ ability to coach.
2013 marked the beginning of the end for the past few regimes. Two Super Bowl wins weren’t enough to save Jerry Reese or Tom Caughlin from the hot seat. The bar has been significantly lowered for the latest regime.
But this season could determine just how low ownership is willing to go.
The 2020 schedule does not get any easier, either.
But Judge, Daniel Jones, and the rest of this abysmally bad team can inspire some kind of hope simply by not failing as bad as the team failed in 2017.