Big Blue View
The mood has shifted in Giants Nation on the heels of their team’s 3-0 preseason record this summer. It’s not just the record. It’s the sense that the talent level of the team has noticeably increased, and that the offense in particular looks as though it might finally be operational after years of mostly futility.
The question is: Does the pre-season actually forecast anything about how good the team will be once the bell rings in September?
I’m going to use Pro Football Focus grades here to try to portray what Giants teams in the recent past were like in the pre-season. I realize there’s controversy over how relevant they are about the entirety of an individual player’s performance, but the nice thing about looking at the past is that we know how things turned out, and for the team as a whole any number is likely to be more indicative than the number for a single player.
So here’s the question: Does the preseason tell us anything about the regular season to come? PFF goes all the way back to the early 2000s in its grading, but unfortunately they didn’t start grading the pre-season until 2013, so we can’t tell how they saw the Super Bowl 2007 and 2011 teams before their regular seasons began. What I can tell you is that the 2007 team had a 1-3 pre-season record and a -17 point differential, while the 2011 team had a 2-2 record and a +5 point differential. No indication in either year of anything special to come.
Here are the Giants’ team (not individual player) PFF rankings from the 2016 season onward, missing only 2020, when the pre-season was cancelled due to COVID. I’ve color-coded the upper and lower quartiles of team ranking in each category green and red, respectively, for ease of interpretation without having to pore over individual numbers:
If PFF pre-season grades were actually a harbinger of the season to come, they would suggest that the 2025 team is going to be scary good. They were PFF’s top overall team, second in offense, fourth in defense. They were in the top three in overall offense, passing, pass blocking, receiving, and run blocking. The defense wasn’t quite as dominant, but it still finished in the upper quartile in overall defense, run defense, pass rush, and pass coverage.
Unfortunately, PFF pre-season grades aren’t always good predictors of the season to come. Which pre-season of the nine above most resembles the 2025 pre-season? Clearly, it’s 2019. The Giants went 4-0 that pre-season and were in the upper quartile overall, in most offensive categories, and in several defensive categories. It’s now a memory buried deep in our psyches, but rookie No. 6 pick Daniel Jones seemed to silence all the naysayers, having a terrific pre-season. I’m sure you remember, but in case you don’t, just Google “Daniel Jones pre-season 2019” and see what comes up.
Here for example is a montage of figures from an article in NFL.com entitled,...
