The New York Giants hit rock bottom, losing their 100th game since 2011 on Sunday afternoon, finishing last place in the NFC East for the third time in a decade
The silence you heard emanating from East Rutherford as the New York Giants and Washington Football Team closed out their season in front of an essentially empty MetLife Stadium shows how far the Giants are from relevance.
Sunday’s 22-7 defeat closed out New York’s third last-place finish in the NFC East, and was the franchise’s 100th defeat since last hoisting the Lombardi Trophy as winners of Super Bowl XLVI following the 2011 season.
From a lack of star-caliber players to excite fans, limited cap space this upcoming offseason, and myriad questions all over the roster, things couldn’t be much worse for the New York Giants.
The New York Giants aren’t just bad, they aren’t just largely hopeless, from a fan interest and national significance standpoint they are irrelevant.
Here’s a look at just how far the New York Giants have fallen, and how far away the franchise is from mattering again:
Fan apathy
Sports franchises can survive their fanbase being angry, showing up in droves to boo, or burning down the phone lines of sports talk radio stations to vent about the head coach or another close loss.
New York Giants fans don’t even have that kind of passion, anymore.
In the hours leading up to Sunday’s game, there were 3,172 tickets available with several seats going for just $6.00.
By some accounts, there wound up being fewer than 15,000 fans in the seats.
The look here at MetLife Stadium during the opening drive. Lots of emptys. Reminds me of nobody being in stands for 2013 Giants-Washington finale in driving rain. pic.twitter.com/IguW9duw9a
— Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) January 9, 2022
Sunday was obviously mitigating circumstances; Jake Fromm at quarterback, a last place team, freezing rain in the forecast, but it was more the norm for East Rutherford Sundays than some sort of exception.
Throughout the course of this season — and many times over the past three years — the contingent of visiting fans has been sizable, be it Philadelphia Eagles fans making the short trip up I-95, or Las Vegas Raiders fans or Denver Broncos fans making a nearly cross country cavalcade, their presence has been felt.
Even at Eli Manning’s final game in a New York Giants uniform in 2019, the stadium was half empty by the time head coach Pat Shurmur pulled him in the fourth quarter for a curtain call against the Dolphins.
In an era where NFL attendance is booming, the New York Giants have struggled to keep invested fans in the seats.