New York Giants are Ranked Too Low in NFL Executives Poll

Would you think a team that nearly won their division last season and is getting Saquon Barkley back would be ranked as the second-worst team in the NFC? No chance, right? Well, that’s exactly where the New York Giants are ranked in a new survey published in The Athletic by Mike Sando.

Five NFL executives ranked where they thought each NFC team would finish at the end of the 2021 season. The expected teams were at the top. But when you scroll down through the rankings, you see the Philadelphia Eagles, Carolina Panthers, and Atlanta Falcons ranked ahead of the New York Giants.

Here are the full NFC rankings, according to these five anonymous NFL executives.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Green Bay Packers
Los Angeles Rams
Seattle Seahawks
San Francisco 49ers
New Orleans Saints
Dallas Cowboys
Minnesota Vikings
Arizona Cardinals
Washington Football Team
Philadelphia Eagles
Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons
Chicago Bears
New York Giants
Detroit Lions

The Giants are Too Low

The Giants shouldn’t be in the same category as the Lions. Detroit’s wide receiver core is Tyrell Williams, Kalif Raymond, and Amon-Ra St. Brown. The Giants, meanwhile, have Kenny Golladay, Sterling Shepard, and Darius Slayton. The Falcons, who went 4-12 in 2020, traded away their star wide receiver, Julio Jones, while New York did the opposite by bringing in Golladay to be the team’s top receiver. Yet, Atlanta is ranked ahead of New York by these executives.

The Giants’ division is going to be stronger this year but it’s not like they’re going to be playing in the NFC West. New York may not be better offensively than the Cowboys, but they do have a better defense. Washington has a great defense but it can’t be said definitively that they have a better offense than the Giants. Lastly, Philadelphia is an afterthought in the division as they’re in rebuild mode.

What the Executives Said

Some of the comments made by the voters didn’t make much sense. “What I like about Daniel Jones is he’s willing to stand in there, stare down the barrel,” one of the voters said. “They added some weaponry. Getting Saquon back (at some point) will be huge because they can do a better job marrying run with [the] pass. Jones is going to work at it, he’s tough and he can do it physically. Being in the same offense for the second year in a row, he has a chance to take off a little bit…”

Everything this voter said in this quote is complimentary of the Giants. Then why did they rank them the second-worst team in the NFC? Barkley is a 1,000-yard rusher and arguably the best running back in the league when healthy. He’s confident coming out of his ACL rehab. The team improved in the offseason, headlined by the Golladay and Kyle Rudolph additions as well as the draft selection of Florida receiver Kadarius Toney.

Another executive explained one of the reasons that New York was ranked so low was because of Barkley’s health. “Their defense has a chance, but without Saquon Barkley, an offense built around Daniel Jones does not,” the voter continued, “They do a lot of things with weird special teams formations that take up practice time, but their season is riding on some of the basics, like whether they can protect the quarterback.” Barkley is a Pro Bowler for a reason. If any team in the league lost their star running back, they wouldn’t be as good.

Bulletin Board Material

We have to assume that Barkley will be healthy this season, and if he is, he’s a game-changer. Teams that were ranked higher than the Giants, such as the Bears and Eagles, don’t have a star running back or wide receiver like New York. It’s hard to imagine that both of those teams don’t struggle more than the Giants this year. Perhaps this will be bulletin board material for Joe Judge and the Giants going into the season.