Collectively, New York football in the NFL is 13-20, which could be worse, but all three New York teams had much higher expectations going into the season than what their record shows. Here is the state of New York football organized from worst to marginally better.
Giants
What an incompetent team. The Giants opened the season getting squashed 40-0 by the Cowboys, a division rival. They then followed that with a close comeback win against a struggling Arizona Cardinals team and proceeded to lose the next four games, two of which were against the other two floundering New York teams.
Quarterback Daniel Jones put together a good season last year with the help of new head coach Brian Daboll, who coordinated the Bills offense in prior years. A lot of Daboll’s value last season seemed to be placed on his ability to hone quarterback talents, as he did with Josh Allen and now Jones. But with Jones having played bafflingly bad football for more than a month before getting injured, what value is Daboll adding this season?
It is clear that the Giants have already chalked this season up to being a lost cause. Daboll will probably stay on for next, but Jones will likely be leaving for a career of playing backup quarterback to teams that are not the Giants. The Giants, arguably, should have moved Jones off years ago. I think Eli Manning’s legacy convinced the Giants franchise into believing that below average quarterback work can still lead to championships. That is almost an impossibility at this point.
Jets
During the preseason, the prestigious team from HBO’s “Hard Knocks” docuseries followed the Jets around with cameras. Because of the NFL’s ability to force certain teams into participating in the show, it is unclear whether the Jets even wanted to be involved. Regardless, being featured on “Hard Knocks” is usually pretty good propaganda for a team, showing why they should be successful that season. In the Jets’ case, there were plenty of reasons to believe they would be a competent, playoff-bound team.
Future Hall-of-Famer Aaron Rodgers left the Green Bay Packers for the Jets, as did star running back Dalvin Cook from Minnesota. Sure, Rodgers is nearly 40, and Cook is on the older side for running backs,. bBut these were still flashy additions, building on a team that already had stars like Quinnen Williems and Sauce Gardner.
The talent was all there; whether or not they could properly use all this talent was really the only question. And that question was suddenly irrelevant when Rodgers got crumpled on his second play of the season. But look, they won the game anyway! That is a good sign right? Wrong. The Jets have gone 3-7 since that win with two confounding losses against division opponents in the past two weeks. We all thought they would be bad without Rodgers, but no one thought they would play this badly.
With Rodgers injured, Zach Wilson, who seemed all too comfortable taking a light season backing up Rodgers, was back as starting quarterback in game one. He played so badly in subsequent games that Jets legend Joe Namath, out of nowhere, publicly said he wanted the Jets to bench him. Tempers are certainly hot for Jets fans.
Bills
The Bills opened the season losing a winnable game against the Jets, and with a few notable exceptions, that has been their standard. The crash of the Bills is the least expected storyline of the New York teams. The Jets and Giants have only recently flirted with success, while the Bills have been playoff regulars for the last four seasons. Their defense, despite missing key players to injuries like Matt Milano and Tre White, has mostly held opposing teams to beatable scoring numbers. Their offense simply has not executed at their expected level with the likes of Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. On both sides of the ball, everything has just looked off: too many penalties, drops, interceptions, etc.
Sitting at 6-6, there is still a possibility that they make the playoffs, but after completely screwing up what was supposed to be a lazy river of wins in the middle of the season, they are heading down a raging waterfall with the Chiefs, Cowboys and Chargers ahead. It certainly did not help that they just lost to the Eagles in dramatic fashion.
Looking Ahead
For the Giants, a new quarterback will be the thing to watch for next season, so they are essentially entering an offensive rebuild. For the Jets, Rodgers will supposedly be back soon, so even if they do not make it to the playoffs, fans can at least watch the offense they were promised at the start of the season as a preview for next year. For the Bills, whether they make and succeed in the playoffs matters a lot, simply because regressing that hard could mean serious offseason moves.
While some questions remain unanswered for all the New York franchises, something definitive is that it has been a tough watch this year for fans of all three teams.