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Road to the Super Bowl : New York Giants

Last Season: The New York Giants are coming off a 5-11 season a year ago. They went 2-6 at home and 3-5 on the road. They finished dead last in the NFC East behind Dallas, Philly, and Washington. Their 5-11 record was also tied for the 3rd worst in the NFC. There were not many bright spots for this team last season. One positive for this team was that their 1st round draft pick Saquon Barkley turned out to be a star. He won the Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

Transactions: Since the Giants had a bad year they did wind up with the 6th overall pick in the draft. With the 6th pick they drafted Daniel Jones, Quarterback from Duke. They also had two more first round picks which they used on Dexter Lawrence, D-Lineman from Clemson, and Deandre Baker, Cornerback from Georgia. Now you ask how they got all these first round picks? About a month before the draft the Giants traded Odell Beckham to the Cleveland Browns for Jabrill Peppers, a first rounder and third rounder in this years draft, and a future pick. This was a blockbuster trade for the Giants. They did sure up the wide out position afterwards as they signed veteran Golden Tate. Tate is suspended for the first 4 games of the season. Some other additions to the team are Rod Smith, Antoine Bethea, Markus Golden, and Cody Latimer.

Title Hopes: Now I am not going to sit here and say that the New York Giants are going to win the Super Bowl next year, but I will lay out the best scenario for them to get to that position. The NFL, I believe is wide open every year, and that any team can win the Lombardi Trophy. Lets start off with the schedule. I’ll break it down into two eight game segments. The first half of the season goes like this, AT Cowboys, VS Bills, AT Bucs, VS Redskins, VS Vikings, AT Patriots, VS Cardinals, AT Lions. Five out those eight teams had losing records a year ago. I think going 4-4 is a very realistic goal in that eight game stretch. The next half of the schedule goes like this, VS Cowboys, AT Jets, AT Bears, VS Packers, AT Eagles, VS Dolphins, AT Redskins, VS Eagles. Now the second half of the season is much more daunting than the first. There is 5 home games in the second half, and I am including the game at MetLife vs the Jets. I think if they can go 4-4 or 5-3 in that first part of the season there is a chance this team can make a wild card.
Who needs to step up for this team ? The player that needs to come out every week and produce big numbers is Saquon Barkley. Like I said before he is reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year. Barkley needs to go for 2,000+ all purpose yards and 10+ touchdowns for this team to be in meaningful games in December. Next, the receivers need to produce. Golden Tate is out for the first 4 games, but Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram, Rhett Ellison, Cody Latimer need to be big time playmakers throughout the season. The Offensive Line is revamped and needs to protect whoever the Quarterback is. The O-line should look like this, from left to right, Nate Solder, Will Hernandez, John Halapio, Kevin Zeitler, and Mike Remmers. This is a good offensive line, and we should see the Quarteback on his feet a little more this year compared to last year.

Tragic Flaw: The one downfall for the Giants this season could be the play of their defense. Now they do have some big names on defense such as Janoris Jenkins, Jabrill Peppers, and Alec Ogletree. The rest of the defense is very young. There is going to be about 4-5 rookies who will get significant snaps throughout the year. Now I don’t want to bash the rookies as they could come out and be really good right off the bat. It is just a big question mark on how this defense is going to come together. We will see what Coach Shurmur and Coach Bettcher have in store for us when the season begins September 8th.

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