No one is sure what to make of the 2024 New York Giants. They can easily return to form and play as they did in 2022 when they qualified for the NFC Playoffs.
Or they can continue to wallow in dysfunction, get hamstrung by injuries again, and finish 6-11 like they did last season.
One former NFL general manager — Jeff Diamond, who ran the Minnesota Vikings in the 1990s — believes a slow start in 2024 could lead to another “train wreck” of a season for Big Blue.
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“There are a lot of moving parts that are going on with the Giants right now and especially going into the season and a lot of pressure on [Daniel] Jones, on Brian Daboll, on Joe Schoen and I think it’s a potential train wreck coming if they don’t get off to a good start this year and if they’re not competitive in a pretty tough NFC East,” Diamond told Big Blue View’s Ed Valentine.
The Giants’ schedule in the first half is a bit daunting. They open against the Minnesota Vikings at home and then travel to play a much-improved Washington team in Week 2. That is followed by a trip to Cleveland and a home game against Dallas.
They then travel to Seattle before hosting Cincinnati and Philadelphia in consecutive weeks. Currently, they are underdogs in all of those games except the opener, where they are favored by one point.
Diamond’s assessment wasn’t all gloom and doom, though. He admitted that he doesn’t really see that train-wreck scenario playing out and that the Giants’ roster isn’t nearly as bad as others are making it out to be.
“That NFC East is a really interesting division, but I think that the Giants if Jones is playing well, if [Malik] Nabors comes on, if the defense gels, and most important if that offensive line can play better then I think they’ve got a chance,” he said.
That is quite a few “ifs” to hit on, but in Daboll’s third season, the team expects to click better under him. The key, of course, will be health. They can’t have another spate of injuries like the ones that ravaged their offensive line last season and led to three quarterbacks starting a third of the season each.