We’re less than a week away from discovering the NY Giants official 2021 regular season schedule. To celebrate, let’s take a look at the Top-10 season opening games in franchise history.
With the NFL Draft officially in the books, we’ve officially moved into the next step of the off-season as we approach team sanctioned on-field drills and OTAs, and the NY Giants’ schedule release just around the corner.
As we inch closer to seeing teams make their way back to the practice field, the NFL is also planning to release the 2021 NFL regular season schedules for all 32 clubs on May 12.
For the NY Giants, we already know who their 2021 opponents look like, we just don’t know when they’ll play who and what games will be primetime. The 2021 home slate will consist of the Falcons, Panthers, Raiders, Broncos, Rams, Washington, Cowboys, and Eagles. The Giants will hit the road to play the Chiefs, Chargers, Buccaneers, Saints, Bears, Washington, Cowboys, Eagles, and Dolphins.
Just looking at the opponents on paper points to a rather mysterious schedule in terms of difficulty. Facing the defending Super Bowl champions and the reigning back-to-back AFC Champions in the Chiefs will obviously be a tall task, but outside of those matchups most games present a lot of questions.
We already know where the rest of the NFC East stands. Dallas will enter the season with the return of Dak and a huge question mark on defense. Washington returns one of the league’s best defenses and added weapons on offense, but can Fitzmagic get the job done at QB? And the Eagles…are the Eagles.
The Broncos, Chargers, Bears, Saints, Dolphins, and Panthers are all relatively young teams with most of them facing QB uncertainties. And the Raiders and Falcons are middle of the pack teams that can present challenges but are ultimately winnable games.
Right now, all that is irrelevant as we have yet to see one full padded practice. But, there’s a lot of reasons to be excited as a NY Giants fan heading into this fall.
That excitement will culminate with the season opener which will be revealed in less than a week. While no one will be surprised if it ends up being Dallas (again), Big Blue faithful would want nothing more than a primetime matchup vs the Eagles to kickoff the season.
Until it’s officially revealed May 12, let’s take a trip down memory lane and look back at the Top-10 season openers of all-time for the NY Giants.
10. September 10, 2006 – Indianapolis Colts 26, NY Giants 21
Although it was a loss, the highly anticipated ‘Manning Bowl’ lived up to the hype in front of over 82,000 at MetLife Stadium to kickoff the 2006 season.
Eli would go 20-34 for 247 yards, 2 TDs, and 1 INT while big brother Peyton completed 25 of 41 passes for 276 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT.
Indianapolis jumped out to a 16-7 lead at halftime before Eli orchestrated two 65+ yard scoring drives to bring the G-Men to within two halfway through the 4th quarter. After an late interception that allowed the Colts to stretch the lead to 26-21, New York got the ball back with a minute left and was unable to pull off any late game heroics.
Plaxico Burress and Jeremy Shockey each hauled in a touchdown pass while Brandon Jacobs added a score on the ground. Big Blue outgained the Colts 433-327, slightly edged out the time of possession battle, and had more first downs, but two costly turnovers and 10 penalties proved to be too much to overcome.
While the primetime Sunday Night game didn’t end with a win, the Giants would go on to win 6 of their next 7 games. The Colts, of course, would start the season 9-0 and finish the regular season 12-4 before ultimately winning Super Bowl XLI vs the Chicago Bears.