New York Giants: The worst pro team in Big Apple?
By Zac Wassink
The New York Giants are a proud organization with a deep history. Big Blue may also be the worst pro sports team in New York this fall.
How did we get here? It’s a question New York Giants fans are asking themselves ahead of November and will likely continue asking themselves throughout the holiday season and into the coldest weeks of winter.
The days of this Giants roster being advertised as a “win-now” team seem like they occurred in a different lifetime. New York has already unloaded players ahead of the deadline, and the organization’s fire sale isn’t yet over if those running the club have anything to say about it. In short, the Giants are a mess.
As much as some Eli Manning haters may not want to realize it, general manager Dave Gettleman and co-owner John Mara deciding to draft running back Saquon Barkley and stick with the two-time Super Bowl MVP under center is not why the Giants are staring at another losing season. Years and years of putrid offseason decisions and fireable draft classes dropped a franchise that won a Super Bowl in February 2012 to the bottom of the overall NFL standings.
One of the many topics regarding the Giants discussed on local sports talk radio since the team’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football revolved around if the franchise is the worst among those located in the New York market. It’s a fair question to ask since the Giants are clearly stockpiling on future assets and phoning-in the second half of the current campaign.
Think whatever you want about Major League Soccer. Both the New York Red Bulls and New York City FC are more stable and more successful clubs than the Giants as of November 2018. One, or even both as of the typing of this sentence, could win some hardware before the end of the year. Truth be told, they’re the real best football teams in the region, but that’s a different topic for a different time.
As for the NFL, nobody can question that the New York Jets are in a better place than the Giants heading into the offseason. Sam Darnold may or may not be the franchise quarterback the Jets have needed forever.
Darnold is hardly a perfect prospect, but the 1-6 Giants would rather have him on the roster than Alex Tanney or Kyle Lauletta. The situation could change, of course, if the Giants sign or draft an upgrade at the position before next summer, but that doesn’t alter the reality that the Jets are deservedly ahead of the Giants in power rankings today.
The New York Yankees are legitimate World Series contenders before an offseason that could include the team signing Bryce Harper begins. There’s plenty wrong with the New York Mets this fall, but they won’t be in a complete rebuild unless they deal either Jacob deGrom or Noah Syndergaard before spring training. Maybe the Mets will even improve the roster via free agency! OK. That final line is admittedly a stretch.
While fans of the New Jersey Devils realize how quickly things can go south for that franchise, the team could again squeak into the playoffs depending on what occurs with other clubs in the conference. Both the New York Rangers and New York Islanders have already begun their rebuilds. The Giants could leapfrog either or both teams via a couple of productive offseasons, but Big Blue sits beneath the pair as your Halloween candy rests untouched in your pantry.
The two NBA teams is where things get tricky because of the nature of that league. There’s no virtue in being somewhat good or somewhat bad in the NBA. If a team is neither a contender nor one of the worst teams in the league, it’s stuck in basketball purgatory.
dark. Next. NFL Week 8: Coaches on the hot seat
Sure, the New York Knicks have Kristaps Porzingis, but the right business decision is for him to not return from injury until October 2019. The Brooklyn Nets are still attempting to recover from 2013, to the point pockets of fans would prefer the team finish with an awful record than barely make the playoffs before getting swept right out of the postseason.
Giants fans not around in the 70s may not realize how bad things can get and how swiftly that process can unfold. They’ve lived through some terrible times for the Jets, though, and it’s those memories that play a part in wondering if the Giants are, in fact, the worst team in New York. It’s on Mara, Gettleman and head coach Pat Shurmur to do whatever necessary to turn such conversations into punchlines as soon as possible.