With preseason over, the Jets and Giants look ahead to Week 1
The Jets and Giants completed their preseason schedule facing each other last Saturday at MetLife, their shared home stadium. The Jets earned the win by 32-24, to finish 2-2 and the Giants ended 1-2. The Jets had an additional game as they opened the NFL preseason schedule playing the Cleveland Browns in the league’s annual Hall of Fame game on August 3.
Preseason is essentially immaterial now to the men who survived final cuts and the coaching staff. While sympathetic feelings may linger for those that grinded through the dog days of training camp and strived to make the teams’ 53-man roster but did not survive final cuts, preseason is immaterial now. The remaining players and coach staffs must now look ahead to Week 1.
The Jets open the regular season on a Monday night, September 11, at home against the Buffalo Bills, the defending AFC East winners. The Bills were 13-3 last season. They weren’t credited with playing 17 games because their contest against the Cincinnati Bengals on January 2 was canceled after safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field after taking a direct hit to his chest.
The Jets did get through the full 17-game slate and were last in the division at 7-10. This season, with the addition of four-time league MVP Aaron Rodgers resolving the Jets’ seemingly perpetual quarterback issues, they enter this season as one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
The oddsmakers don’t foresee the Giants having similar prospects as the Jets, but they have the necessities to be a playoff contender and perhaps go deeper into the postseason than they did last January, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round. It was the Giants’ first playoff appearance since 2016.
After going 9-7-1 last season, holding third place in the NFC East and securing a wildcard spot, the Giants will have a difficult schedule as it stands today and two of the league’s leading Super Bowl contenders in their own division to deal with in the reigning NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. Five of the Giants first six games are versus teams that all made the playoffs last season. The exception is the Arizona Cardinals, who they face in Week 2.
The Giants open the regular season at MetLife on September 10 in the NFL’s Sunday night
(8:20 p.m.) primetime game hosting the Cowboys. They will play the Jets Week 8 (October 29) in a game the Giants are designated as the home team.
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