Win At least One Playoff Game
This may not seem to be a BOLD prediction, but before you fill the comments with anger, look at New York’s schedule. A tough early slate with Pittsburgh, San Francisco, the Los Angeles Rams, and Dallas through the first five weeks figures to start the season slow. Sure, they have the two Washington games in the middle of the year, but even those are sandwiched around two games against Philadelphia and one against Tampa Bay. Then late-season contests against Dallas, Baltimore, Seattle, and improved young teams in Arizona and Cincinnati could spell danger for a playoff push.
The Giants took a beating from the “statistically-based” schedule generation process. They play nine different games against teams that were .500 or better last season; that doesn’t even include the new-look Tom Brady Buccaneers, Joe Burrow’s new age Bengals, or Arizona with Kyler Murray throwing to his new toy in DeAndre Hopkins. All three teams figure to improve under new quarterback leadership or new offensive talent, and all three could give a young Giants squad trouble.
However, let’s just follow recent historical precedent. Carson Wentz is far more likely to get hurt than not, and as such, the Eagles cannot be pegged for much more than the nine wins they achieved last season. Somehow, regardless of talent level, Dallas always finds a way to sit somewhere between eight and ten wins, and we still don’t know for sure if Dak Prescott will be behind center this year with his contract status up in the air.
Given the difficulty of their schedule and a reasonable expectation for second-year improvement by Daniel Jones, it still seems unlikely for New York to pull out a division title. But it hasn’t been that long since the NFC suffered weak records by Wild Card teams, and even the Eagles only recorded nine wins to lead the division last season.
Asking for a five or six win improvement is a lot, but the NFC East has been one of the league’s least consistent divisions for most of this decade. None of the division’s four team has won back-to-back division titles since Philadelphia won four straight in the early 2000s, which likely means we’re due for another new winner. Crazier things have happened, and there are far worse bets in 2020 than Daniel Jones.
