The New York Giants are going to have to pack their hats and gloves when they hit the road in 2016. Playing the AFC North means post-Thanksgiving road trips to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and they wrap the season with frigid road games outdoors in Philadelphia and Washington. Even their road game against the Los Angeles Rams is in chilly London in late October. Here’s a way-too-early game-by-game prediction breakdown of the coming season. Please pair with an appropriately sized grain of salt.
Week 1: Sunday, Sept. 11, at Dallas Cowboys, 4:25 p.m. ET
The Giants open in Dallas for the third time in the past four years. They lost there in the 2013 and 2015 openers and also lost the 2012 opener to Dallas at home. The Giants are 1-6 against Tony Romo the past four years. He haunts their nightmares. In this one, the old formula repeats, as the Giants play what they believe is a pretty good game but leave Romo too much time at the end (say, 1:57) and he leads the Cowboys down the field to beat the Giants in another heartbreaker. Record: 0-1
Week 2: Sunday, Sept. 18, vs. New Orleans Saints, 1 p.m. ET
The much-anticipated rematch of one of the weirdest, wildest games of the 2015 season happens in New Jersey this time. Last year in New Orleans, Eli Manning threw six touchdown passes but lost 52-49 to Drew Brees, who threw seven. The Saints aren’t the same on the road, and this time Manning gets the better end of the matchup to avoid a fourth straight 0-2 start. Record: 1-1
Week 3: Sunday, Sept. 25, vs. Washington, 1 ET
Washington may be the defending division champ, and Kirk Cousins may have established himself as a legitimate starting NFL quarterback, but the Giants remain unimpressed. They’re convinced they know how to beat Cousins, and their post-Thanksgiving loss in Washington stung them as badly as any they had all year. They get their revenge at MetLife. Record: 2-1
Week 4: Monday, Oct. 3, at Minnesota Vikings, 8:30 p.m. ET
The Giants didn’t have a suspended Odell Beckham Jr. when they lost a frigid late-December game in Minneapolis last season. The game’s indoors this year, and the Giants have big Damon Harrison to help them contain Adrian Peterson. But the Vikings’ defense is still a good bit better than the Giants’ defense, even with all of the improvements. Minnesota takes a low-scoring affair. Record: 2-2
Week 5: Sunday, Oct. 9, at Green Bay Packers, 8:30 p.m. ET
Ben McAdoo’s return to Green Bay! The Giants’ new head coach spent eight years as a Packers assistant from 2006-13 until joining the Giants as offensive coordinator, and Packers coach Mike McCarthy is his mentor. But McAdoo learns quickly that it’s not as much fun when Aaron Rodgers is playing for the other team, even though the Giants get a break here with the Green Bay trip relatively early in the season -- before it's too cold there. Packers win. Record: 2-3
Week 6: Sunday, Oct. 16, vs. Baltimore Ravens, 1 p.m. ET
The Ravens are picking sixth in the draft two weeks from now, which is just weird. We’re not used to the Ravens being a bad team, and neither are the Ravens. The expected return to health by its key players on offense and defense returns Baltimore to playoff-contender status, and Joe Flacco, Terrell Suggs & Co. are too much for the Giants in this Super Bowl XXXV rematch. Record: 2-4
Week 7: Sunday, Oct. 23, at Los Angeles Rams (in London), 9:30 a.m. ET
My thing with way-too-early schedule analysis is that we can’t know which teams are going to be good or bad at this point, so the only thing on which we can focus is the travel issue. The London game is a travel challenge for any team that goes, but it’s twice as long a flight for the Rams, who now look as if they’ll also be starting a rookie quarterback. Record: 3-4
Week 8: BYE
Week 9: Sunday, Nov. 6, vs. Philadelphia Eagles, 1 p.m. ET
No team is happier to see Chip Kelly in San Francisco than the Giants, who were 1-5 against the Eagles in Kelly’s three seasons as their coach. Beckham finds things easy against that Eagles' secondary, and the Giants come off the bye to beat Philly for the first time since 2013. Record: 4-4
Week 10: Monday, Nov. 14, vs. Cincinnati Bengals, 8:30 p.m. ET
This isn’t a playoff game, right? No, can’t be, unless it’s the Super Bowl. Which it’s not. The Bengals have made the playoffs five years in a row. The Giants haven’t made it since 2011. These are teams at very different places in their franchise history, and the Bengals’ roster depth is on display to make the Giants and their fans envious. Bengals win this one. Record: 4-5
Week 11: Sunday, Nov. 20, vs. Chicago Bears, 1 p.m. ET
The last time the Bears played the Giants in New Jersey, Jay Cutler was sacked nine times in the first half and couldn’t answer the bell for the second. Bad memories surface for Cutler, who has a rough day against Olivier Vernon, Jason Pierre-Paul and the ghosts of Giants pass-rush past. Giants win. Record: 5-5
Week 12: Sunday, Nov. 27, at Cleveland Browns, 1 p.m. ET
Our man Pat McManamon has a fun exercise every year at this time when he looks at the game-by-game predictions of the beat writers whose teams are scheduled to play the Browns and adds up the wins and losses. Usually the Browns come out something like 2-14. Which is something they could totally be. Who would pick a team, at this point, to lose to whatever's left of the Browns? This is a Giants road win. Record: 6-5
Week 13: Sunday, Dec. 4, at Pittsburgh Steelers, 4:25 p.m. ET
The only sack Pierre-Paul had last year was of Cam Newton, who’s nearly Pierre-Paul’s size. I kidded him about it the following week, asking if he’d been waiting for the biggest quarterback he could find for his first sack. He laughed and said no, he’d rather sack a little guy. So I asked if Newton was the hardest guy to sack and Pierre-Paul said, “No -- Roethlisberger.” Giants don’t win this game. Record: 6-6
Week 14: Sunday, Dec. 11, vs. Dallas Cowboys, 8:30 p.m. ET
Back home after two weeks away in the AFC North, the Giants find a way to squeak out a win against their division rivals and get themselves back over .500 as they head into the final stretch. A truly meaningful December for the first time in four years. Record: 7-6
Week 15: Sunday, Dec. 18, vs. Detroit Lions, 1 p.m. ET
Well, they won’t have to worry about covering Calvin Johnson anymore. Not that they did much of that that the last time they saw him -- hey-O! Ba-dump-bump! Honestly, there’s no way to credibly guess whether the 2016 Lions will be a good team, but a second straight home game before the in-division finish feels comfy enough from here. Give the Giants a win at home and another week in the race. Record: 8-6
Week 16: Thursday, Dec. 22, at Philadelphia Eagles, 8:25 p.m. ET
The Giants have been outscored 54-7 the past two years in Philadelphia, and things aren’t getting a lot better this time on a short week. Victor Cruz scores a touchdown in the place where he tore up his knee, which makes for a good story. But the Giants suffer another tough division road loss. Record: 8-7
Week 17: Sunday, Jan. 1, at Washington, 1 p.m. ET
The NFC East is just too mediocre these days for us to know which teams should beat which other teams. So even though it hasn’t been working out this way for the Giants, I’m sticking to my tradition of giving them wins in their home division games and losses in the road ones. If you have a better idea for how to pick a game like this nine months out, I’m all ears. But my April prediction formula says the Giants lose a big division road game to wrap the season and miss the playoffs for the fifth year in a row. Record: 8-8