The 2021 NFL season was another that New York Giants fans want to forget quickly. Their beloved Giants went 4-13, finished bottom of the NFC East, and missed out on the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season. The team is a far cry from the 2011 Giants that defeated the New England Patriots 21-17 at Super Bowl XLVI, the Giants’ fourth Super Bowl victory. The latest odds from sites offering sports betting online suggest it will be a similar story during 2022, but things could be different for Giants fans during the upcoming campaign; here is why.
An Easier Than Usual Schedule
With the fixtures for the 2022 NFL regular season decided, long-suffering New York Giants fans should be delighted to know their team has, on paper, the third-easiest schedule across the entire league. It does not help that NFC East rivals the Washington Commanders and Philadelphia Eagles have similarly easier schedules but facing supposedly lesser opposition should take some pressure off the team.
A New Coach Equals a Fresh Start and New Ideas
The Giants sacked their head coach and front office staff after last season’s disappointment and brought in Buffalo duo Joe Schoen as the GM and Brian Daboll as the head coach. They are the Giants’ third general manager and fifth head coach in the past eight years. Never has an NFL team needed some stability more than the Giants.
Daboll and Schoen have inherited a team with an injury-hot roster, serious questions about the franchise quarterback, and a team with a salary cap mess waiting to explode. Daboll is an exceptional coach, but Giants fans need to be patient with him and his staff because rebuilding the Giants to former glories is a monumental task.
Everyone has a clean slate going into the 2022 regular season, with all active roster members fighting for a place on the team. The Giants roster has some brilliant players but also severely lacks in several key areas.
Giants will be hopeful Daboll, and his team can halt a run of six straight defeats when they face the Tennessee Titans on the opening weekend.
The Giants’ Offense Needs Vast Improvement
Giants fans are hopeful Daboll’s vast offensive experience will bring a new dimension to their team’s offense in 2022. To be frank, the Giants’ offense was terrible last season. The Giants scored only 24 touchdowns all campaign; they ranked joint bottom for rushing touchdowns (8) and joint second bottom for receiving touchdowns. That has to change and change fast. Six of the Giants’ last eight games in 2021 saw them score ten points or fewer. You cannot win games when your offense is as toothless as that.
Big things were expected of Daniel Jones, who the Giants selected sixth overall in 2019. However, Jones has not lived up to the billing, partly through injuries but also because the Giants offensive line has done so little to protect him. Throw into the mix a lack of creativity from the Giants wide receivers and a lack of punch from the backs, mainly because all of them spent some time in the treatment room last year, and you can see why Jones is in the last chance saloon. The fact that the Giants brought in Tyrod Taylor on a two-year $11 million deal shows the staff’s lack of faith in Jones. Here is hoping he can prove everyone wrong.
Adding guard Mark Glowinski from the Indianapolis Colts should give Jones, or Taylor, some much-needed protection to do their thing in the pocket. Another guard, Max Garcia, and center Jon Feliciano may only be stop-gaps, but their presence means the Giants have a more than competent in front of Jones.
Lady Luck Needs to Help With Injuries
The Giants’ roster dealt with more than its fair share of injuries last year. Now that Jones has some protection to do his thing, the Giants need the likes of Kenny Golladay, Sterling Shepard, and Kadarius Toney to keep fit to give Jones something to aim for. That has proved to be an impossible task of late.
Should the Giants fare better with injuries, if Jones performs like in his college days, and if the new coach can quickly gel the team together, the Giants could cause a few upsets in 2022. The Intra-divisional games will be crucial if the Giants are to reach the playoffs; they play four of them between Weeks 12-15.
