SI.com Delivers Grim Forecast for Giants’ 2022 Season Record

SI.com's Conor Orr believes the Giants are in for another year of struggles regarding its win-loss record.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Sep 3, 2022 12:00 PM EDT

In this story:

New York Giants

There is a universal opinion that the New York Giants still have a lot of work to do on their roster to get the team closer to what the brain trust of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll envision.

Certainly, the rash of injuries the team is dealing with, combined with a lack of salary cap space to address the injuries with the best possible options, isn’t helping matters, as Schoen himself declined to set any expectations for the first team under his direction.

That hasn’t stopped others from setting expectations—or lack thereof, as is the case—for the Giants in 2022. SI.com’s Conor Orr, in predicting the outcome of every single NFL regular-season game, isn’t feeling warm and fuzzy about the Giants being much better this year than they were in 2021 when they finished 4-13.

Orr has the Giants finishing at 5-12, the same record as the Washington Commanders, but in fourth place in the NFC East. Here is a look at the forecast for each of the Giants' 2022 regular-season games.

SI.com's 2022 New York Giants regular-season record prediction. — SI.com

In this forecast, Orr has the Giants losing six of their first eight games, including a big four-game losing streak starting with Week 4 against the Bears and ending in Week 7 against the Jaguars.

In the second half of the season, Orr has the Giants going 3-6, including two two-game losing streaks (Dallas and Washington in Weeks 12-13 and Indianapolis and Philadelphia in Weeks 17-18). This streak would put the Giants on pace for their sixth straight losing season and their seventh out of eight campaigns with double-digit losses.

If the Giants manage to avoid any more significant injuries, there is no reason to think they couldn't realistically double their four-win total from 2021.

Wins against the Panthers (Week 2) and Bears (Week 4) are very much realistic goals (though we're not so sure about a Week 3 win at home against the Cowboys on Monday Night Football, where the Giants have historically not played well).

A Week 7 win over Jacksonville also isn't so far-fetched, nor are Week 10 and 11 wins over Houston and Detroit, and at least one win against the Commanders.

Overall, trying to forecast a season's worth of wins and losses is something of an exercise in futility because of the unknown factors--injuries, weather, calls, etc.--that can influence the outcome of a game.

While no one is expecting the Giants to be the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals (a team that went from having a 4-11-1 record in 2020 to being a Super Bowl participant in 2021), there is certainly enough reason to be optimistic that Schoen and Daboll have a plan to get this team back to being relevant sooner than later once the salary cap straightens out, and they can get the injury situation under control.