Giants-Colts at MetLife Stadium: From playoff clincher two years ago to trying to avoid NFL infamy this time
Giants head coach Brian Daboll reacts in the second half against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Jason Pinnock grew up in Connecticut, just close enough to New York to receive the full blast from the rays the city’s unique sports appetites emit. Yankees, Mets, Knicks, he followed all of them, enjoying their successes and the indelible memories they created.
Then he got to be a part of one of them.
On Jan. 1, 2023, the Giants beat the Colts at MetLife Stadium in the regular season’s penultimate game, 38-10, to clinch a playoff berth. The building was electric, with fans chanting the name of the quarterback and giving the team a standing ovation.
“It was your euphoric New York moment,” the Giants safety recalled. “It was a New York classic.”
It also was less than two years ago.
The Colts are coming back to MetLife Stadium to face the Giants on Sunday, again in the next-to-last game of the regular season, but this is going to be a very different atmosphere.
The quarterback who was adored, Daniel Jones, is no longer on the team. Neither is the running back who was the true motor behind that year’s successes, Saquon Barkley. He’s busy threatening records and leading the Eagles into the playoffs.
The coach who was hailed as a genius and would win the NFL’s Coach of the Year for that season, Brian Daboll, now is derided by signs and flying banners calling for his removal.
And the fans who filled the building that New Year’s Day afternoon? Most of them probably will find better things to do than waste their time coming to the game this time around.
This is the end of a home schedule that began in September with boos on the opening three-and-out drive and hasn’t gotten better since. In their eight home losses, the Giants have been outscored by an average of more than two touchdowns per game: 14.25 points.
Things are so bad that the NHL’s Rangers have won a game at MetLife Stadium (Feb. 18) more recently than the Giants have (Jan. 7).
Two years to go from so happy to so hapless. It feels like two decades.
But this, too, is a New York classic in a way. Because this city, more than just about any other when it comes to sports, is one of extremes.
“If you’re doing your job, it’s pretty great,” wide receiver Darius Slayton said of playing in this area. “If you are not doing your job, they are going to let you hear about it. That’s real. That’s life. You don’t get a cookie for not doing your job.”
“I know how it is,” Pinnock said. “When you are winning, they love you, and when you are not, you got to go. You’re the worst thing in the world . . . You feel the highs and the lows here. Especially the guys who have been here since '22 until now, you felt the highs and the lows of New York.”
This season, and this game, now has the potential to reach just about as low as things can possibly get.
The Giants already have lost a franchise-record 10 straight games. They’re already the first Giants team to go 0-8 at home. If they drop Sunday’s contest to the Colts, they will fall to 2-14 overall and become the first team in NFL history to go 0-9 at home in a single season.
And if they win? That might be even worse. It could knock them out of contention for the first overall pick in April’s draft and preclude them from selecting a quarterback around whom they might be able to rebuild the roster.
Then again, a win could save them from reaching for a quarterback in a draft class most analysts aren’t very high on.
Those are arguments for the spring. Right now, it’s that dreadful home record that stands out the most, though perhaps it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise.
Hard times at MetLife Stadium are nothing new. The Giants have been playing in the building since 2010 and have never been able to establish anything close to a true home-field advantage. Their overall record in the building is 54-68-1; compare that to Giants Stadium, where the Giants were 155-117 over 34 seasons. They have had only four seasons with a winning home record at MetLife and just one since 2016. Even in the season in which they won their last Super Bowl, 2011, they were 4-4 as the home team in the regular season. Perhaps more crucial to that season’s success than any home game was their 1-0 record in the building as the visiting team, thanks to a Christmas Eve “road” win over the Jets.
But the Giants have never seen anything like this stretch of home incompetence. No one has. The only other time the Giants went a full season without winning a home game was 1974, when they were 0-7 at the Yale Bowl during a 14-game season in which they finished 2-12. Going 0-9 is nearly 30% worse!
Rookie Malik Nabers, who is questionable to play Sunday with a toe injury, has yet to leave the parking lot at his home stadium with a victory. Maybe it is the Curse of Ray Flaherty.
“I want to thank all of the fans for coming out and supporting us through the season,” he said this past week. “It's been a tough one. But we're building up a lot of fire to push into next year . . . We've got to be better. We've got to go out there and put on a show.”
"It's not extra emphasis whether it's at home or away," said Drew Lock, who will start at quarterback for this home finale. "When you're on a losing streak, you want to get that win. Whether it's at home or away, you're fighting every week for a win. And if you do lose, flush it and learn from it and move on."
Eventually, though, you get to the point that the Giants are now, with almost nothing to move on to.
Pinnock said the home record fills him with two emotions: “Embarrassment” and “anger.”
“It sucks, bro,” he said of not winning at home all season. “You have people who support you. It’s not like I live to make the fans happy, but it’s a plus. It’s what they spend their hard-earned money on. Internally, though, for us, you want to win and you want to win at home in front of your people. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get that done.”
Not this year, anyway.
Next year? Or maybe two years from now? Things might be very different.
If these past 24 months have taught us anything, it’s that changes in outcomes and expectations and attitudes can come quickly in this sport . . . and in this town in particular.
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.
