Are NY Giants resilient enough to save their season a second time?

A miraculous four game winning streak saved the NY Giants’ season – but an ignominious performance Sunday provided a reality check.

Before the season started, the NY Giants would have signed up to be one game out of first place with three games to play. But – after an embarrassing loss to the Cardinals saw their ability to control their own destiny evaporate – things aren’t as great as they seemed.

The Giants are a flawed team – and that’s okay. Young teams with new head coaches usually are. That doesn’t help the sting of the beatdown they received from the Cardinals hurt any less.

Joe Judge didn’t shy away from the result though, he knew what every media member, fan and player watched, the Giants were worse in every facet of the game. Even in losses this season, there’s been positives … not this week.

“They outplayed us. We were out-coached, out-played,” said Giants’ head coach, Joe Judge. “We have to do more to be successful. We have to have a better week this week and take steps forward as a team. A lot of mistakes were made in the game that can’t happen again.”

We’ve seen this team face adversity before and come out on top – winning four straight after starting 1-7 is nothing to scoff at. Now, with the Washington Football Team a game ahead, the Giants will have to stare adversity in the face yet again.

This time, it’s in the form of the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys – their playoff hopes reliant on three wins. Adversity isn’t supposed to be easy.

If the Giants have any hope, their offense needs to catch up with their defense. Remember, their offense was supposed to be the strength of this team – a talented second year quarterback, plus a new offensive coordinator to help build him and his weapons into a formidable unit.

Instead, it’s been a unit that’s only been better than one team: the 0-13 Jets.

Daniel Jones looks to be regressing, his numbers looking more like numbers you would see from a backup quarterback. No, he wasn’t able to use his legs as a weapon against the Cardinals, but a franchise quarterback needs to be able to do enough from the pocket as well.

For offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, there seems to be more questions than answers.

Garrett seems to be out of touch, his offense lacking creativity and adjustments that the team sorely needs.

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The blame isn’t entirely on Jones and Garrett though, as the team’s play-makers have been anything but this season. Evan Engram, Golden Tate, Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton have to help their quarterback out more – whether that’s simply catching the football, creating more separation or making more contested catches.

The entire offense can’t run through Wayne Gallman and Alfred Morris, no matter how good the run game looked during their win streak.

As bad as the offense has been, the Giants’ special teams haven’t been much better. Earlier this season they almost single-handedly lost the game against the Cincinnati Bengals, and they helped doom the team this weekend.

The Giants got obliterated in the field position battle, and it’s part of the reason why they didn’t run a play in Cardinals territory until the second half. They were also responsible for one of the games biggest momentum swings – a Dion Lewis fumble on a kick return.

The Giants’ defense has punched adversity in the mouth all season – becoming a feared unit and shutting down opponents. The other units have been the ones getting punched.

If the Giants are to overcome, they’ll have to play better complementary football. That means more out of the offense, more out of Jones and Garrett, and more out of their special teams.

Judge has said his team backs down from nothing – not other teams, not long odds, nothing. They proved they were resilient before, now it’s time for them to prove it all over again.

Out of adversity comes opportunity –  and the next time opportunity knocks, we’ll see if the Giants lay down like they did this weekend, or kick the door down.