Predicting The Critical 2024 New York Giants Schedule: Weeks 1-4

Of the past dozen season openers for the New York Giants, over 75% of them have been played against the Dallas Cowboys. In 2024, unfortunately, that trend may continue for a Giants team in need of a fast start for a pivotal third year under Brian Daboll.

Jerry Jones claimed he wanted to be “all-in” with the Cowboys for this season, and for the most part, the team did not achieve that goal. To some degree, Dallas is primed to take a step back in 2024 after having lost several key talents on both sides of the ball (re-signing Ezekiel Elliott notwithstanding). To win and put Mike McCarthy immediately on the hot seat would be an early-season defining moment for the Giants, regardless of ultimate record.

Week 2: At Carolina Panthers

Is Bryce Young going to take the big leap forward in Year 2? The team did draft Xavier Legette with the final pick of the first round to help Young, but new Head Coach Dave Canales still has to unlock the potential Young has.

Brian Burns’s return will dominate the headlines across North Carolina in the run-up to this contest, as he and the new-look Giants defense will cause havoc for Young whenever these teams meet up during the 2024 campaign. If this matchup is to occur early in the campaign, it would be a perfect low-stakes matchup with long-running implications for the ultimate victor and loser.

Week 3: Vs. Indianapolis Colts

There’s nothing as good as home cooking, and while the Giants wait until the final eight days of September to start their home campaign in 2024, it comes against a team the Giants handily defeated in 2022 to clinch their playoff berth.

But a year makes all the difference for the Indianapolis Colts, who recovered from the disaster of 2022 to fall one game short of an AFC South crown in 2023. While Gardner Minshew is now a Las Vegas Raider, 2023 first-round pick Anthony Richardson will embark on what should hopefully be his first full NFL campaign. Add in top rookies Laiatu Latu and Adonai Mitchell, and the Colts should make this trip to MetLife a much closer affair for Big Blue than their 2022 contest.

Week 4: Washington Commanders

To close September, the Giants (and Jayden Daniels’s LSU college teammate in Nabers) meet Daniels and the Commanders for the first time in 2024. Whether the 2023 Heisman Winner will be starting by this point remains to be seen, but the Commanders are set to take their first real step of the post-Dan Snyder era.

The Commanders held the league’s worst defense in 2023, but Dan Quinn’s arrival — who also brought along Joe Whitt Jr. from the Cowboys to be Defensive Coordinator — should help inject new life into the Commanders. Even so, the quarterback situation leaves Washington’s fate for this season unclear, and the Giants have had Washington’s number as of late. Do not expect much to change for the first meeting of these NFC East rivals in 2024.