Brian Burns saw the Giants as a chance to change his NFL luck. Not so yet for the former Panther
Brian Burns of the New York Giants after losing to the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
After spending the first five years of his career in Carolina where the Panthers never finished with a winning record and never made the playoffs, Brian Burns thought he’d broken free of that losing and dysfunction when he was traded to the Giants this past offseason.
“Coming from where I came from to now, of course I had a more positive outlook on things, that I could turn my career around, start winning some ballgames, finally get to the playoffs and whatnot,” the linebacker said after the Giants' most recent loss to Washington.
As he prepares to face his old squad on Sunday in Munich, though, things haven’t gone quite the way he or anyone else envisioned they would.
The Giants and the Panthers are two of the seven teams tied for the worst record in this suddenly very bottom-heavy league, each with an identical 2-7 record. There are two other two-win teams at 2-6, also. But because of the timing of their morning meeting with its 9:30 a.m. kickoff, the loser of Sunday’s game in Germany will, at least temporarily, stand alone for a few hours as the worst team in football.
That it could be the Giants stuck with that label is not outside the realm of possibility. They are expected to win from a betting standpoint, with most books favoring them by 4.5 points -- their first time as favorites since Week 2 of last season, a stretch of 25 games. But the Panthers are certainly the “hotter” team coming off their win against the Saints on Sunday, so who knows what will happen.
The bigger point is that Burns came to the Giants thinking he would be playing games at this point in the season for playoff contention and for first place. He and his teammates will instead be fighting to avoid the absolute cellar.
“It’s the NFL, man,” Burns said. “You just have to go as it goes. You can’t get too high or you can’t get too low.”
We may be about to find out just how low things can get.
The Giants are not the worst team in the league. There are plenty of other franchises that trip over themselves and embarrass themselves with far more regularity. And they actually have some very good players, from Burns and Dexter Lawrence on defense to Malik Nabers on offense. Even Daniel Jones, their beleaguered quarterback with whom it is becoming abundantly clear they will not be able to win consistently and whom the front office saw take them to the playoffs in 2022 and erroneously believed that run to be his floor rather than his ceiling, is a competent NFL player.
There are far worse quarterbacks, far worse rosters and far worse organizations.
But if they fall to 2-8 on Sunday, if they lose to a Panthers team that has mismanaged its recent drafts to epic football catastrophe, traded away many of its most prominent players and is without a slew of talented others who have been dealt season-ending injuries, good luck avoiding that depressing designation.
The Giants have a right to be disappointed in the trade, too. Burns has played OK with 5.0 sacks, and his leadership role on the team is evolving forward, but he certainly hasn’t been the game-wrecker the Giants thought they were getting. He said it’s not too late for the Giants to turn things around though, and maybe even go on a run and bring some dignity and a few Ws to this woeful season.
“It’s the NFL,” Burns said. “Stranger things have happened.”
Indeed. Like these Giants being mired where they now stand.
Brian Daboll, whose job as head coach is probably secure beyond this season but could become less so depending on how deep the Giants sink in the next few weeks, said he isn’t worried about big pictures or standings or international travel or anything else. He said his sole focus is on this game.
“That's what we all need to focus on in terms of the coaches and the players,” he said. “Put everything we got into it, like we normally do, and do as good as we can do to try to get the results that we're all hoping for. That's where our mindset is.”
Burns said that’s where his attention is too. Told of the result on Sunday after the Giants’ loss, Burns seemed pleased to hear that the Panthers had won as he remains close with some of his former teammates still there. But he insisted this isn’t a matchup he’s had circled in any way.
“It’s another game,” he said. “I’m not trying to blow it up to be all that it is. I’m going to prepare the same way I always do and go out there and plan to dominate.”
Plans, as Burns is learning, don’t always play out. This game should have been his chance to gloat a little, to flex, and to show the Panthers what he could do once freed from their perennial doom.
Instead he finds himself fighting just to help the Giants avoid their own.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.