So the Giants entered the game with the Chargers with not much hope, basically fighting for worse positioning in the draft. Both teams seasons are over, the question was who would be more likely to crawl to like, 5 wins, and pick #7. It was a depressing affair and no fan really went into that game thinking it would actually mean anything for either team. Somehow the Giants managed to turn a hopeless game into something even worse, as all their receivers died along with any hope of 5 wins.

I’ve never seen what happened on Sunday before happen to any team before, it was like the position was literally cursed that day. The Giants lost their #1, #2, #3, and possibly #4 receivers to injury in the same game. Honestly in the space of like, half a game. Sterling Shepard was the first to die, suffering what looked like an ankle twist. He was being worked on on the sidelines but went into the locker room eventually. Basically two plays after Shepard went down, Brandon Marshall also got a nasty ankle injury. He was carted off. At some point later in the game, backup receiver and punt return man Dwayne Harris left the game with an unspecified foot injury. Then, not too long after doing his best to give the Giants season one last glimmer of hope, Beckham suffers a horrific ankle break and is carted off in tears.

None of the plays were dirty, all were just bad luck. 3 of these players are likely gone for the year. Beckham is out. Harris is out. Marshall seems likely out. Only Shepard will likely be back this season, and who knows if he’ll be 100%. It was a complete decimation of what should be (on paper) one of the better WR corps in the league. The Giants offense went from “Well the line sucks, the running game sucks, Eli is old, but the WRs are good” to “Whelp that’s all over” in the span of 2 hours. If you have Roger Lewis or Evan Engram available in your fantasy leagues, pick ’em up, because they are all Eli has now. Also something called Tavarres King. He caught a touchdown once I think. He’s probably our #3 option now.

With the Giants season already in the toilet it’s not like this affected much outside draft position, but I feel bad for Eli now. He was more or less playing as well as anyone in that situation could have been. Any complaint you can level at Eli this year is more or less the same stuff you could always say about him (inconsistent, makes some boneheaded throws, has a dumb face) in any season. With no run threat whatsoever (until this week against a bad run defense), zero pass protection, and horrible play-calling by greaseball McAdoo, Eli was never going to look great, but now he’ll look even worse. People are going to discuss if the Giants should take a QB and maybe they should, but not because Eli is done yet, only because he’s old. Frankly any QB is going to suck behind this line though, unless the QB is mobile. Even then.

At the start of the season I saw roughly a 7-9 team. Expected the offense to stay bad (it did), expected a slight regression on D (it’s been a little worse than that). After the bad start I saw 5 wins. Now I see maybe 3. They are certainly in the running for #1 pick now. I mean, it’s a bummer, but at least now I can focus on the rest of the NFL and not stress out at all as I enjoy the show. How about them… well shit the Titans died too. How about the…I dunno, Broncos? Rams? The Rams are kinda fun now. It’s still hard to tell which teams are for real good.