If you asked anyone outside of their respective fanbases—national analysts, skeptical local beat writers, people in line at the grocery store—you would have been told the Falcons and Giants were going to be two of the worst teams in the NFL in 2022. They might have pegged their combined record at this point in the season as something like 3-9, or perhaps if you were optimistic, 5-7. They were destined to be some of the NFL’s lesser lights, surely.
Obviously, that hasn’t been the case. At 5-1, the Giants are the NFL’s biggest surprise, a team winning in all sorts of creative and frankly delightful ways, squeezing every last ounce out of their talent and maximizing skillsets with great coaching, unique formations, and more wrinkles than an elderly mole rat.