The New York Giants’ season-opening game against the Dallas Cowboys next Sunday night might not be a “must-win” game for the Giants. It sure would, though, be a significant one.
The Giants have begun seasons 0-2 or worse in 10 of the last 13 years.
Season starts since 2013
Tom Coughlin
- 2013 — 0-6 (7-9 finish)
- 2014 — 0-2 (6-10 finish)
- 2015 — 0-2 (6-10 finish)
Ben McAdoo
- 2016 — 2-0 (that extended to 10-4, then an 11-5 finish and a playoff berth)
- 2017 — 0-5 | 1-8 (3-13 finish | McAdoo, GM Jerry Reese fired with four games remaining and the Giants 2-10)
Pat Shurmur
- 2018 — 1-7 (5-11 finish)
- 2019 — 0-2 | 2-11 (4-12 finish)
Joe Judge
- 2020 — 0-5 | 1-7 (6-10 finish)
- 2021 — 1-5 (4-13 finish)
Brian Daboll
- 2022 — 6-1 (9-7-1 finish … wild-card round victory over Minnesota Vikings)
- 2023 — 1-5 (6-11 finish)
- 2024 — 1-3 | 2-13 (3-14 finish)
- 2025 — 0-3 | Daboll fired at 2-8 (4-13 finish)
It seems appropriate that the Giants will begin the John Harbaugh era in a nationally-televised game against the Cowboys.
The Giants and Cowboys have played seven times in season-opening games since 2012.
The Giants are 1-6 in those games, with their only victory coming in 2016.
The memory of the 40-0 whitewashing by Dallas in 2023, the last time the teams met in a season-opener, is still fresh for Giants fans.
The Giants hired Harbaugh, with 15 winning seasons, 12 playoff appearances, and a Super Bowl title in 18 years with the Baltimore Ravens, in an effort to get an organization that has lost its way since the 2011 Super Bowl victory, back on track.
One of the things Harbaugh has to fix is the Giants’ history of burying themselves by the middle of October. Sometimes, by the end of September.
The Ravens started the 2025 season 1-5, so Harbaugh is not immune to poor starts. Still, his track record is the antithesis of how the Giants have started seasons.
Harbaugh’s Ravens went 12-6 in 18 season-opening games. In home openers under Harbaugh, the Ravens were 15-3.
Part of that early-season success has to be that Harbaugh pushes players harder in the spring and summer than most current coaches. Harbaugh uses padded practices as much as the Collective Bargaining Agreement will allow, and generally keeps players on the field as long as the rules say he can. Even jog-throughs in West Virginia lasted 2½ hours.
Harbaugh’s methods don’t need validation. His resume speaks for itself. The Giants, though, are long overdue for a change in their fortunes.
Veteran cornerback Greg Newsome, who competed against Harbaugh’s team while with the Cleveland Browns, said the coach runs “tough, gritty” practices.
“We’re going to work, and I like that,” Newsome said during training camp. “There’s no off days for us in terms of not competing. He’s going to make sure we compete.”
Veteran defensive tackle D.J. Reader also lauded Harbaugh’s focus on getting the most out of each day during training camp.
“You’ve got to callous the body,” Reader said. “The thing that’s important in football is callousing the body to be ready to take on those blows throughout the season, because you’re going to get chinks in your armor, and if you didn’t build your armor up enough to be able to withstand those hits, those dents, those little scratches you’ll take in your armor, then shame on you.
“I think it’s important to be able to callous the body. Do it with intent. Be smart about it, but you have to callous the body to go out there and play this game. You’re not just going to roll out there, roll out of bed, and be able to go out there on Sundays and get it done.”
Several times in recent years the Giants have employed the “go easy in the summer, then roll out of bed in Week 1 and go play” approach. The results have been mostly ugly.
If things don’t go well at the beginning of this season, they certainly will not have that as an excuse.
Tight end Isaiah Likely spent four years in Baltimore before following Harbaugh to New York.
“That first two weeks we had in Greenbrier, out of 11 days, 10 practices, I feel like that’s normal to me. Like, I’m just – if I wake up, I’m putting on cleats. That’s just the mantra I have,” Likely said. “So, hearing how Giants training camp was in the past, that was kind of mind-boggling to me, but I feel like the guys embraced it. We had a good time in Greenbrier, and then when we got here, I feel like now everybody’s on the same mantra as, if we’re in the building, it’s all ball.”
The Giants are 2.5-point underdogs against the Cowboys, per FanDuel Sportsbook.
It is, of course, a Sunday night game. It is at home. It is Harbaugh’s first game. It is a division game, in a division where the Giants have been the poor, down-trodden step-child for a long while now. It is the first chance for the Giants to show the NFL that they are not the same old Giants.
Oh, and in Week 2 the Giants have to travel across the country to face the Los Angeles Rams. The team that is favored to win the 2027 Super Bowl. The team some are already saying has a legitimate chance to go 17-0 this season. The team with Myles Garrett, Aaron Donald, Matthew Stafford, and a host of other star players.
So, yeah, winning against the Cowboys on opening night takes on added importance. If the Giants are going to avoid what has become their annual 0-2 start, they would seem to have a better chance to do that in Week 1 than Week 2.
Brandon Lee Gowton of the newly-relaunched NFC East Mixtape podcast and Bleeding Green Nation recognized the importance of the beginning of the season for the Giants when he said this:
“It’s super-important for the Giants to get off to a great start this season … If you beat the Cowboys, which they have struggled to do so often now, especially in games that truly mattered, that would truly set the tone tone that you bring in John Harbaugh, this is a new era. We have Jaxson Dart here.
“I think the Giants really need to win that first game, or at least split with the Rams in that Week 2 game, because once you do that the schedule opens up a bit and I think they can rattle off some wins to build some momentum.”
‘Mixtape’ co-host RJ Ochoa of Blogging the Boysobviously doesn’t want to see a Week 1 Giants’ victory. He also, though, acknowledged, what avoiding an 0-2 start could do for the retooled Giants.
“A win against either one of these two teams, both games of which are on prime time, would establish a different feel, would establish a different level of belief.”
A new era begins for the Giants next Sunday. Can they start it in a new way?
