NY Giants Drop Several Spots in Latest MMQB Power Ranking Poll

As fast as the New York Giants can manage to gain some positive leverage in the NFL's hierarchy in the early weeks of the 2025 season, they've also shown they can slide right back down the order with an abysmal display of team football on the gridiron.

That's exactly what played out for the Giants in Week 3 this past Sunday night as they finally came home to MetLife Stadium just to give their hungry fanbase a second offensive snoozer in a 22-9 loss to the winless Kansas City Chiefs that left them booing the starting unit and chanting for head coach Brian Daboll to make the fated switch to his rookie prodigy in Jaxson Dart.

Following his unbelievable aerial heroics that played out in Dallas in a close 40-37 overtime loss, Russell Wilson went from a near 500-yard passer to a leader of the huddle that couldn't convert more than a single late down play nor punch in a pair of six points with his arm and arsenal of capable receivers who were mostly silenced by a stout Chiefs' secondary prepared to face them.

Of course, Wilson wasn't the only highly questionable factor in the losing equation. The Giants have also come under fire for what seemed like a poorly coached squad that showed a lack of discipline in big moments and play calling that left viewers scratching their heads, given that the game was fairly close on the scoreboard in the first half.

Still, the immense shortcomings of the veteran gunslinger have been the biggest issue that everyone has been talking about in the aftermath of the loss, including SI.com's Connor Orr, who tried to paint a vivid picture of just how far off the Giants' offensive dreams with Wilson have fallen in three short weeks.

In his latest MMQB power rankings poll ahead of Week 4 of the season, Orr continued his seesaw pattern regarding New York's placement amongst the other 31 teams, slotting them back down at No. 31 ahead of only the Tennessee Titans, who are the only 0-3 franchise with less potential.

"The Giants’ goal line sequence in which Russell Wilson didn’t throw a single pass into the end zone against the Chiefs, which followed a game two weeks prior with similarly disastrous results, juxtaposed with a Lions team that scored a rushing touchdown on Monday where one running back option tossed to another, is truly something," Orr said.

"Cam Skattebo will be this year’s Tommy DeVito at least."

The sequence that Orr was referring to happened on the Giants' penultimate possession of the contest, with the Chiefs ahead by two scores with six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Wilson led the Giants 53 yards in 12 plays thanks to the positive work of rookie running back Cam Skattebo, who had a breakout of 121 scrimmage yards and a touchdown, and connections with multiple targets.

Yet, the Giants would get a fresh set of downs inside the Kansas City 5-yard line towards the end of the drive and proceeded to fail miserably on all four chances to at least cut the deficit and make the surefire defeat at least interesting for a fleeting moment.

On the next four snaps, Wilson would fire three shots towards the endzone, but never come close to getting into the breadbasket of any receiver. He airmailed one ball into the tunnel that drew an intentional grounding penalty, ran a strange quarterback draw on 2nd-and-goal from the 13 on the next play, and even hit the crossbar on his final pass on fourth down to seal the deal.

With the latest loss in the books, the Giants have managed just 2.47 points per drive, which is only good for 25th in the NFL, and converted just 20% of their red zone visits into touchdowns for the fourth-lowest efficiency rate in the same span. Wilson sits tied for first with eight deep plays of 20+ yards, but it has only yielded a 3-3 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 16.7% turnover-worthy play rate.

New York Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart — New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart (6) reacts in the second quarter against the Kansas City Chiefs at MetLife Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

That simply isn't what the Giants signed up for with Wilson, who some viewed as a desperation signing in free agency to avoid having to go out and play with a rookie signal caller right away. They had hoped that the Super Bowl champion had enough winning plays left in him to command drives and help the Giants win a few games in the league's toughest schedule.

Instead, the entire product continues to fall short of expectations. As the pressure starts to ramp up on the team's brass, that was given another year to prove themselves, the time has come to pull out their last resort to salvage the campaign and avoid a complete blowup that feels like it's on the way.

The total future of the entire organization will now rest on the early arrival of Dart, whose head coach, Brian Daboll, was concrete in defending his slow and steady progression to be an NFL-ready starting quarterback in the first three weeks.

Daboll no longer had a choice, as his system was sputtering, and his last chance was to prove he was the quarterback guru who landed the job after a long, successful tenure as the offensive coordinator in Buffalo.

If the Giants are going to still find a path to some wins and climb back up Orr's rankings, it's going to take Dart playing with that same level of confidence and poise that we saw in his three preseason performances. The coaching staff will also need to trust and let him unearth his full potential, rather than limiting him to minor rushing plays, as we've seen in his sparse snaps over the past two games.

There was way too much that went into the past offseason for the Giants, between the upgrades at the helm to maxing out their spending on a defensive front that is supposed to be their calling card, to be sitting in a 0-3 hole and staring down the barrel of another lost season if the onslaught of defeats continues.

New York needs the slightest traces of hope to come out of Dart, who has been patiently waiting for his moment and will now see it against a premier Los Angeles Chargers defense that will be hungry to get after and stunt the upward trajectory. Otherwise, changes are coming very soon, and it'll be hard to fathom the Giants crawling even one level away from the league basement the rest of the season.

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