There was no way the New York Giants could lose last weekend being on a bye, right?
Wrong.
Besides the fact that every other team in the NFC East won their respective games last weekend, thereby continuing to separate themselves in the division from the Giants (who fell from second place in the NFC East after Week 9 back down to fourth place after Week 10 concluded), the Giants have also lost ground in the weekly MMQB NFL power rankings.
This week, they fell from No. 24 to No. 27.
Writes MMQB’s Jenny Vrentas of the Giants’ latest spot in the rankings:
The Giants hope to have both running back Saquon Barkley and left tackle Andrew Thomas back post-bye week. But the team has a lot of work to do in the second half of the year to meet owner John Mara’s preseason standard of “making progress” and “moving in the right direction.
A closer look at this week’s power rankings shows it isn’t so much about what the Giants did or didn’t do this past week as it is about the sudden crowd toward the bottom of the barrel as the season went just past its halfway mark.
Early season risers like Carolina, Denver, and Seattle currently occupy spots No. 20-22, but the feeling seems to be that those teams, despite their issues, are still worthy of a higher ranking than the Giants.
Even the Eagles (No. 24) and Washington Football Team (No. 25), both who can be above (as is the case this week) or below the Giants in any given week, have managed to rise, thanks to their respective wins against Denver and Tampa Bay last weekend.
There is some good news for the Giants, namely the growing optimism that running back Saquon Barkley might be ready to return when the Giants visit the Bucs for a date on Monday Night Football. Barkley, when functional, can give the sagging Giants offense a boost in its overall production.
Even better news is that, according to Tankathon, the Giants have the 23rd easiest remaining strength of schedule, which identifies five winnable games (Chicago, Miami, the Football Team, and both games against the Eagles).
The bad news for those who put a lot of stock in power rankings is that the Giants probably won’t crack into the top half of the MMQB rankings this season.
But if there’s a sliver of a silver lining to grasp on to, it’s that given how cluttered the bottom of the NFC is, there is still very much a chance that the Giants can sneak into the final playoff spot if they get their act together and start stacking a few wins in their post-bye games.
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