Giants Have Been Outscored 162-62 in Week 1 Openers Since 2020

While many NFL teams will say that the season is a marathon and not a sprint, that doesn’t mean they should treat the Week 1 opener as a warm-up.

And yet that appears to have been the case in recent years for the New York Giants, which has come out of the gate looking sluggish, ill-prepared, and just overall sloppy in their regular-season debuts.

Part of that has been due to their summer prep, specifically the cadence of their practice schedules combined with the lack of quality preseason game reps.

But under head coach John Harbaugh, the team has made sure to get the players quality practice reps by not only using as many of the 16 padded training camp practices allowed (Harbaugh unofficially used 13 of those) but also taking full advantage of the provisions by the CBA to hold consecutive practices up to six days at a time versus the previous staff’s cadence of three on one off.

The Giants are hoping that all of that leads to a faster start in games that actually count toward playoff positioning and will hopefully result in far more “victory Mondays” than this team has seen since 2020.

Here are three statistical areas where the Giants will need to reverse their fortunes if they are to reach the postseason for the first time since 2022.

No More Slow Starts

New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart and company need to hit the ground running in their games. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Since 2020, the Giants are 1-5 in regular-season openers, including their 40-0 embarrassment against Dallas in the 2023 season, a game played on Sunday Night Football.

The Giants have been grossly outscored in Week 1 openers, 162-62, a 100-point difference.

Nestled in is that the Giants were blown out in the first (-34 point differential) and second (-36 point differential) quarters before keeping things a little closer in the third and fourth quarters (-16 and -14 point differentials, respectively).

Of course, by the time the second half rolled around, the games were usually out of hand to the point where it didn’t matter.

And speaking of regular-season openers, the Giants have had 10 turnovers in those Week 1 games, further lending validity to the argument that they weren’t ready to start the season. Also, of the 10 turnovers they had, most of those came in the second half, when fatigue began to set in.

Harbaugh has worked the team hard to ensure they’re in playing shape for a full 60 minutes and, above all, have the fundamentals down to a science, to where critical mistakes like turnovers don’t plague them moving forward.

Erase the Prime Time Blues

Primetime games haven’t been particularly kind to the Giants, regardless of where the games have been played, the day of the week, or any other factor.

Again, since 2020, the Giants are 0-2 in Week 1 primetime games starting after 7 p.m., and have been outscored 66-16 in those two contests.

And overall, since 2020, the Giants are 3-17 in regular-season primetime games, having been outscored in those contests 473 to 304.

Stop with the Drive-stalling Penalties

The Giants need fewer of these yellow penalty flags, especially those that contribute to stalled drives. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Over the last two seasons, the Giants have been sloppy with penalties that have stalled promising scoring drives.

From 2024 to 2025, the Giants have averaged 38 drive-stalling penalties, up from their 2020-2023 average of 33.

In Week 1 games played since 2020, the Giants have been flagged 29 times, 19 on offense and 10 on defense, with 27 of those penalties having been accepted. That comes to an average of nearly five penalties per game. And of those 29 Week 1 penalties, 12 have been pre-snap (both offense and defense).

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