Five Takeaways from Giants’ Disappointing Loss to Saints

The most maddening aspect of the New York Giants' 2025 season so far is the team's inconsistency week in and week out.

First, there was the dry loss in Week 1 to the Commanders. Then they appeared to be a lot closer in an overtime loss to the Cowboys before coming up flat against the Chiefs.

Last week was their best showing of the year against an undefeated Chargers team. However, that euphoria was short-lived when the Giants were a turnover-filled mess against the Saints.

If you’re getting dizzy trying to follow this season and figure out which Giants team is the real Giants, well, join the club.

“It's the NFL. Everybody's good,” said receiver Wan’Dale Robinson after the game. “You can't go into each week thinking, ‘Oh, we got this win,’ or 'They're 0-4 and they're this and that.’ Just like the Chargers, they were 3-0, and we were 0-3. So every Sunday you gotta come and bring your game.”

The problem is that not only did the Giants not bring their A-game, but they have also been inconsistent in doing so. As a result, the 2025 season is slipping away quickly as the Giants continue to navigate a brutal schedule, which includes a Thursday night game against the Eagles and a road game against the Broncos thereafter.

As each loss continues to mount, time is running out for the current regime, which, despite the best-laid plans, can’t seem to help this team find the level of consistency necessary for forward progress. 

Five more thoughts.

⏹ Anyone else get the feeling that the Giants are force-feeding cornerback Deonte Banks into the defensive lineup for the sole reason to acquire more information as to whether they should exercise his option year, the decision of which needs to be made after this season? 

How else can this ridiculous “rotation” with Cor’Dale Flott, in which Flott plays on first and second down and then Banks comes in for the money down, be explained?

This is Banks’s third season, and he’s still making rookie mistakes, such as dragging Saints receiver Chris Olave to the turf on the Saints’ opening drive. On the play, Banks had his back to the quarterback, thus having no idea what was going on in the backfield. And unfortunately, this isn’t something new with Banks, who, during training camp, was inconsistent with getting his head turned around. 

If the coaches are all about putting the best players out there regardless of draft status or contract, how can they continue to justify playing the inconsistent Banks in big moments?

⏹ I get what head coach Brian Daboll was trying to say regarding questions about not promoting a receiver from the practice squad. I think what they were trying to do was to lean more heavily into the tight ends, which they did on the first two scoring drives.

That being said, it’s not as though the Giants didn’t have a roster spot open for another player to be added. In fact, the Giants had two open roster spots resulting from the waiving of linebacker Tomon Fox earlier in the week and the placement of receiver Malik Nabers on IR.

“We felt good about where we were at relative to our plan going into the game and what we were going to try to do with multiple tight ends,” Daboll explained. “So, we’ll see what happens next week.”

He then added the following: 

“There’s a possibility you could lose two running backs and have no running backs. It’s the NFL; injuries are going to happen. We had five wide receivers, four tight ends in case something happened to one of them, to continue with our plan throughout the game.”

But here’s what Daboll didn’t say and why I think the Giants didn’t bring up Lil’Jordan Humphry to the 53-man roster: the salary cap. 

The Giants currently have about $1.4 million in cap space, which is last in the league. To fill those two roster openings would cost them far more than that, and Schoen is apparently trying to avoid having to redo any contracts until necessary.

But here’s the real headscratcher. Schoen is kicking the can down the road. He won't have enough to get this team through the rest of the season, given what they currently have in terms of space. 

So what’s the difference if he clears out money now or waits? The answer is that there is no difference.