We have known for months every team the Giants will play in 2023.
Heck, we have known for years that the Giants would be facing the AFC East and NFC West this season, meaning we knew the bulk of the 2023 opponents well in advance of this week’s release of the full NFL schedule.
None of this advance information dulls the reveal of the actual dates and times this Thursday.
Suddenly, seeing the exact order of each team’s 17-game slate will allow fans and media members to proclaim, “This is an extremely difficult schedule,’’ or, “There’s no excuse for not making the playoffs with this soft schedule.’’
For the Giants, their annual six games against NFC East opponents — two each against the Eagles, Cowboys and Commanders — is already quite a gauntlet. A division that for years was labeled as weak is certainly not anymore.
Last year, despite the success story crafted by first-year head coach Brian Daboll, the Giants went 1-5-1 against their division opponents, a feeble record that included a dismal 38-7 playoff loss to the Eagles, a team that beat the Giants three times in a six-week span.
The flip side is how the Giants fared outside their conference in 2022: They went 5-0 with a clean sweep of the four teams in the AFC South — Texans, Colts, Jaguars and Titans — plus an impressive victory over the Ravens. It was the Giants’ first perfect interconference record since 2011, when they went 4-0 and, as we all know, went on to win the Super Bowl.
This season, outside of their own division, the Giants will play at MetLife Stadium against the Rams, Seahawks, Packers, Patriots and Jets. They will play on the road against the Cardinals, Saints, 49ers, Raiders, Bills and Dolphins.
Here are a few other tidbits to keep in mind before the complete Giants schedule is announced:
• The Giants (and all NFC teams) will play nine road games this season, an imbalance caused by the addition in 2021 of a 17th game.
• The Giants will have three long trips west — at Arizona, at San Francisco and their first-ever game in Las Vegas.
The Giants made a request to the league that two of these games be scheduled in back-to-back weeks, allowing for the opportunity for the team to stay out west between these games to avoid having three separate cross-country round trips. Expect that to happen. If it does, look for the Giants to try to stay in the Phoenix area, where they could practice at Arizona State, if the Cardinals game is a part of the back-to-backs.
• Every four years, the Giants and Jets square off in the regular season at the stadium they share. This year, it is a Giants home game. Depending on when this game appears on the schedule, it will be fascinating to gauge how much blue and green there is in the gray seats. The Jets bandwagon figures to fill up to capacity with the arrival of Aaron Rodgers.
• Another Rodgers-related item: Does his presence with the Jets reduce the number of primetime games the Giants are assigned? Heading into the 2022 season, outside expectations for the Giants were extremely low, and the initial schedule reflected that with only one night game — a Week 3 “Monday Night Football’’ matchup with the Cowboys. (There was another national game, also against the Cowboys, on Thanksgiving afternoon.)
This season, expectations are higher for the Giants, and they figure to be assigned two or three primetime games. The Jets, though, could be assigned five or the maximum six primetime games — have you heard they traded for Aaron Rodgers? But the more given to the Jets could mean fewer for the Giants because the appetite nationally for New York-area teams is not unlimited.
• The Giants send in a request each year to have any games that may correspond with Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur to be scheduled for the road, so as to avoid inconveniencing their Jewish season-ticket holders who wish to observe the holiday and therefore would miss a Giants home game. (The Jets make the same request.)
Last year, the league dropped the ball, scheduling the Giants for a “Monday Night Football’’ game at MetLife Stadium on the first day of Rosh Hashanah.
Co-owner John Mara was not happy.
“I acknowledge that,” Howard Katz, the NFL’s senior vice president of broadcasting and the leader of the group that puts together the schedule, told The Post last year. “But this is on me, this is not on John Mara. There are flaws in every schedule. We’ve never seen a perfect schedule. This was a flaw.’’
This year is especially tricky for the NFL schedule-makers with both Jewish high holidays on or around weekends. Rosh Hashanah starts on a Friday night (Sept. 15) and continues on Saturday and Sunday. Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 24, and ends at sundown Monday night.
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• What month the Giants play certain games on the road is important — and not merely for determining what clothes to pack. An early-season game in Miami will be all about hydrating and acclimating to the heat in South Florida. A late-season game in Miami is a nice respite from the cold of New Jersey.
An early-season game in Buffalo is … a godsend. Any trip to Western New York in November or (heaven forbid) December can be a foray into a wintery wonderland.
• In 2022, for some odd reason, the Giants and Eagles did not face each other until Dec. 11 after the Giants had already played 12 games. That quirk did not help the Giants. The Eagles had hit their late-season stride, and put on a display of their superiority.
Now, with Jalen Hurts empowered with a mega-bucks new contract and the front office in Philly seemingly having signed or drafted every fearsome pass rusher, the Eagles still look like the team to beat in the NFC. When the Giants first get to knock heads with the team that was a narrow 38-35 loser to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII will give the Giants their first opportunity to see whether or not they closed the gap in any way.
Want to catch a game? The Giants schedule with links to buy tickets can be found here.
Top guys held out
The Giants had their rookie minicamp last week, and the top draft picks didn’t do much of anything in the 7-on-7 periods.
Anyone waiting to see videos or read reports of how cornerback Deonte Banks, the team’s first-round pick, looked in coverage against wide receiver Jalin Hyatt, the third-round pick, was left unfulfilled. Daboll held both players out of the 7-on-7 passing drill, which was as close to real football as there was in the two-day camp. Real football will have to wait for these guys.
What gives?
“They’ve been on the road quite a bit,’’ Daboll said. “Had a lot of visits. Again, one of the main things is just come out of here healthy, let them figure out how we do some things, where some things are, and then get a look at some of the tryout guys, as well. They’ll have plenty of time to get a lot of reps here over the next, call it, few weeks.’’
This rookie camp was more about the coaching staff getting a look at all the players on the field trying out for precious roster spots.
Asked and answered
Here are two questions that have come up recently that we will attempt to answer as accurately as possible:
The Giants signed Tommy DeVito as the third quarterback on the roster. What are his chances of sticking around?
In the short term, his chances are decent.
The undrafted free agent will be with the team until the Giants find another player they prefer. Maybe they don’t find that other player all summer. Maybe they find that player this week.
DeVito, the New Jersey native who spent four years at Syracuse before transferring to Illinois for his final college season, came in and did his best to learn the pared-down playbook given to him for the rookie camp.
The Giants will need at least three quarterbacks — including Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor — as they soon get into Phase 3 of the voluntary workout program and ramp up with their organized team activity practices.
During the regular season, the Giants likely will go with only two quarterbacks on the roster and probably will keep a third available on the practice squad. For now, that figures to be the goal for DeVito.
The Giants had 52 players at their rookie minicamp listed as “tryout’’ participants. What does that mean? Do any of them have a shot at making the team?
There were a ton of guys on the field for two days, and there is no doubt this year there were more of these unsigned, undrafted free agents than usual.
File this under “leave no stone unturned.’’
Every player invited to the camp had a chance to make an impression and earn a contract, but in reality, almost all of these tryout players were around to fill out the practice sessions. The vast majority of the 52 tryout players got a chance to see what an NFL facility looked like, got a chance to see what NFL coaching and weight training and nutrition was about and got a bit of a feel for Daboll and his staff.
But it is exceedingly difficult to turn heads in such a short period of time. The goal for these tryout players was to do enough to get a deal to get them to training camp in the summer, but as of early this week, none of the tryout players had been offered a contract.
