Change the general manager, change the head coach, change the coordinators, change the majority of the roster, but it doesn’t matter, the New York Football Giants will never change. They will always be the same team.

You never would have known if it was Tom Coughlin or Ben McAdoo or Pat Shurmur on the sideline on Sunday in the first game of the 2018 season because the performance from the Giants over the last several seasons, spanning all three coaches, has been the same. Even if it’s unfair to group Shurmur into the disappointing losses suffered during the tenures of the other two after just one game, it was such a Giants-esque loss that I can’t help but include him.

The second play of the season was a 31-yard pass against the Giants defense and the first play of the season for the offense was a tripping penalty on Ereck Flowers at the Giants’ 14. And they were at their own 14 because Cody Latimer decided to run the ball out of the end zone, gaining only the 14 and costing the Giants 11 yards of field position on their season-opening drive. After the Flowers trip, the Giants were backed up to their own 7. They then ran a play for no gain before Eli Manning connected with Evan Engram for 34 yards. But that play was negated by a flag. Who was the flag on? Do you even have to ask? Flowers, of course. This time for holding. Now facing a second-and-20 from their own 4 against the best defense in the league, it was no surprise the possession would result in a punt. Thankfully, three plays later, Blake Bortles would turn into Blake Bortles and throw an interception.

The second Giants possession took the Giants 59 yards from their own 37 to the Jaguars’ 4, where it would stall out in typical Giants fashion. Facing a third-and-Goal from the 8, the Giants decided to run an end-around to Odell Beckham Jr. The play, which actually made me laugh out loud, shockingly resulted in a loss of one yard. Aldrick Rosas converted the 27-yard field goal to tie the game.

From there, the Jaguars kicked another field goal to gup 6-3 and the Giants punted for a second time, leading to a Jaguars touchdown to put the Giants behind 13-3. The Giants got the ball back with 2:42 in the half and a chance for my favorite thing in football: the double score with a possession before the half and the first possession of the second half. The Giants once again got the ball to the red zone and couldn’t get it in the end zone against the vaunted Jaguars defense, and they trailed 13-6 at half.

On the first play of the second half, the Giants called timeout after not being able to get the play off in time. It was the most Giants thing of all time. Even more than the two penalties in the first three plays of their season. How could they come out of halftime and not have the first play of the half decided upon? That’s not rhetorical. I’m asking because I need to know. Using a timeout on the first play of the half is irresponsible. But don’t worry, I’m sure they won’t need that timeout later in the game.

A third Rosas field goal to open the half cut the deficit to 4, but I started to think how Rosas was now 3-for-3 and if the game were to come down to a field-goal attempt, the odds would be against him at that point. You can only trust Rosas for so long. The Giants defense got the Jaguars to punt again and thanks to an unnecessary roughness penalty and a bad punt, the Giants would start with the ball on Jaguars’ 46, trailing 13-9. The Giants had a chance to take the lead against possibly the best team in the AFC and all of football.

On third-and-7 from the Jaguars’ 43, the Giants did what the Giants always do in situations like these: they threw the ball five yards. The Engram reception left the Giants two yards short of a first down at the Jaguars’ 38. Shurmur knew what every Giants fan knows and that is that letting Rosas try a 55-yarder isn’t the best idea, considering it’s almost a certainty the Jaguars would then have the ball at midfield. So being stuck in no-man’s land, Shurmur decided to go for it on fourth down, which to me was the right call. The actual play that ran? Not so much the right call. Manning handed it off to Saquon Barkley and he was only able to gain one of the two yards. Turnover on downs.

It felt like a huge opportunity had slipped away and the Giants had gone from the chance to take the lead, or at worst make it a one-point game, to potentially being down two possessions again if the Jaguars scored a touchdown. The Giants’ defense, which came to play (something they didn’t do at all in 2017), allowed only 15 yards and the Jaguars punted again. One first down and three incomplete passes later, and the Giants punted it right back. Then the Jaguars punted, then the Giants punted, then the Jaguars punted. The game had become a defensive standoff, something I expected from the Jaguars, not the Giants. With 11:24 left in the game, the Jaguars defense basically put the game away when Manning threw a pick-6 into the hands of Myles Jack. 20-9, Jaguars.

The play was deflating. I went from thinking for the fourth straight possession that the Giants might take the lead and win a game I didn’t expect them to win to realizing I was a fool for ever having that thought. But two plays later, Barkley made me regret being so against drafting him with the second overall pick as he broke through with a 68-yard touchdown run.

It’s been so long since the Giants had a good running back. Actually, it’s been so long since the Giants have had an average running back that I forgot what it was like to have someone who can run like that and also catch balls out of the backfield and force the defense to not focus on Beckham. The touchdown made up for Barkley’s inability to get the two yards on the drive that ended with a turnover on downs earlier in the game. Naturally, the Giants’ two-point attempt failed and instead of the game being a three-point game, it was a five-point game at 20-15 with 10:39 remaining.

Another punt from the Jaguars, followed by a punt from the Giants and another punt from the Jaguars gave the Giants the ball at their own 19. The Giants were able to drive the ball 45 yards, but on fourth-and-6 from the Jaguars’ 36, they turned it over on downs for the second time in the second half.

With Leonard Fournette out of the game, the Giants were able to stop T.J. Yeldon and get the ball back with 54 seconds left and no timeouts. (No timeouts because remember the first play in the second half?) But having no timeouts or all their timeouts wouldn’t matter. Recently-signed Kaelin Clay was set to receive the punt, but he muffed it, allowing the Jaguars to recover and take a knee to run out the clock. Why was Clay out there? Why wasn’t the best hands on the team and possibly the league in Beckham not out there? There’s no reason. If you wanted Clay to just catch it and not return, Beckham would have made more sense. And if you wanted a return, Beckham still would have more sense. There’s nothing in a football game in which Kaelin Clay would make more sense than Odell Beckham Jr.

From start to finish it was the exact type of Giants game I have gotten used to watching in my life. Between allowing third-and-longs to convert, to taking two offensive line penalties in the first three plays of the season, to turning the ball over on downs twice, to not being able to convert once in the red zone, to throwing a pick-6, to failing to convert a two-point conversion, to wasting a timeout on the first play of a half, to muffing the punt with a chance to win the game, the game have everything a Giants can could expect. If I were to explain to someone what it’s like to watch the Giants every week of every season, I couldn’t have put together a more accurate depiction of the team if I tried.

I enter every Giants season the same way: thinking they will win the Super Bowl. I realize it’s not a smart approach to set my expectations for the season at a championship, considering I root for a franchise that despite its four Super Bowl wins in the last 31 years has given its fan base a lot of regular-season disappointment. It’s also not the best idea to think an ownership group that interviewed Ben McAdoo and then named him head coach after speaking with him and then let him bench Eli Manning for Geno Smith has now put the team in proper hands moving forward. But the same way I’m dumb enough to bet on the Giants nearly every week, I’m dumb enough to think they can win the Super Bowl this season.

I’m not the only one though. The Giants think they can too. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have stuck with Manning for the foreseeable future and would have used the second overall pick in the draft on a quarterback. It’s quite possible that Giants ownership, the front office, the coaching staff, the players and myself are all dumb, but I like to think we’re not.

Two years ago, the Giants were an 11-win team that should have won their only playoff game. Who knows where the franchise is right now if Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard come down with what should have been early-touchdown catches in that awful wild-card game. The disaster that was the 2017 season likely doesn’t happen and Ben McAdoo is likely still the head coach and Jerry Reese is like still the general manager. Instead, the team is coming off a three-win season in which the both McAdoo and Reese were fired midseason, only after destroying Manning’s consecutive start streak for no reason.

I realize success is fleeting in the NFL, but I have a hard time believing the Giants could be an 11-win team in 2016 and the only team to beat the Cowboys in that regular season, which they did twice, and then become a three-win team overnight. Maybe the eight wins by a touchdown or less in 2016 were a sign that the team just had some breaks go their way in a way they never did near the end of Tom Coughlin era, but winning one-possession games is the way to win in the NFL.

It’s felt like two years since I watched any Giants football that has mattered. Last season was over in Week 3 when they lost to the eventual champion Eagles on a last-second field goal to fall to 0-3. Two weeks later, they were still winless, and a month after that, they were 1-8. It was the most miserable Giants season of my life and for many Giants fans lives, all culminating with the decision to bench Manning for no reason. But looking back, had McAdoo and Reese not decided to bench Manning and handle it the way they did, maybe the Giants win a few games down the stretch and they are both still in their old jobs for the 2018 season. It’s possible that the two idiots needed to make the worst decision in the history of the Giants to avoid Giants fans going through another season with them in charge.

Now it’s Pat Gettleman and Pat Shurmur and I don’t know what to expect. Everything about the way the Giants have planned for this season makes you think they are a playoff team. Factor in the potential Super Bowl hangover of the Eagles, the illogical roster decisions of the Cowboys and the unknown with the Redskins and it’s very easy to see how the Giants could return to the playoffs in 2018, and quite possibly as the NFC East winner. The only thing standing in their way is their schedule.

Normally, when you finish last in your division, you have a path to the playoffs paved for you the following season. Not for the 2018 Giants though. The first seven weeks of the Giants’ season are as hard as any ever with games against the Jaguars, Cowboys, Texans, Saints, Panthers, Eagles and Falcons. Throw in what is always a challenging division game against the Redskins in Week 8 and it’s an absolute gauntlet for the Giants until their bye week. I know it’s not about who you play in the NFL, but when you play them, but as of now, the Giants are going to have to be at least 3-4 in those first seven and 4-4 after Week 8 to have a chance at returning to the postseason. And they are going to have to start hot with a new head coach, a new offensive line and a defense that doesn’t have one true pass rusher on it. The more I write, the more I’m talking myself out of the previous paragraph and the Giants being a playoff team.

But for now, I’m optimistic. That’s right, I’m optimistic about not only the New York Football Giants, which is as ridiculous as it gets, but I’m optimistic about a Giants team that has a new head coach, a new offensive line and pass rush-less defense coming off a three-win season. I don’t know how long this optimism will last (probably until the first delay of game by the offense, or draw play on third-and-19 or holding penalty by the offensive line or first down allowed by the defense on third-and-21), but I think it will last longer than it did a year ago. It better.

I have seasonal depression. The fact that it’s cold at night now and the temperatures fluctuate drastically from day to day and I have to actually check the weather to see what I should be wearing saddens me. I hate that summer is over. I hate it. But like every year at this time, I’m happy that football is back.

The first week of football is special and the anxiousness at 1:00 on the first Sunday of the season is indescribable. Keeping up with the games, parlays, teasers and fantasy teams all at once, while drinking and eating thousands of bad calories for nearly 11 straight hours 17 times a year is magical.

Week 1 is my favorite week to pick and wager on because your decision making is based on your own knowledge and feel for how the season will play out. Week 2, on the other hand, is a reaction and a lot of times an overreaction to what happened in Week 1. If I could, I would sit out Week 2. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. But we have a whole slate of games before we get to the eventual disaster that awaits next week. For now, it’s the best week of the season: Week 1.

(Home team in caps)

Atlanta +3 over PHILADELPHIA
I’m still not over the Falcons’ Super Bowl loss. Dan Quinn should have been fired after the Falcons’ Super Bowl collapse and loss two years ago the same way his former head coach Pete Carroll should have been fired for his goal-line decision two years before that. If you’re the owner of the Falcons, you simply can’t trust Quinn after the way he mismanaged the clock and stopped running the ball altogether in that game. The Falcons will never have that kind of lead in the Super Bowl ever again and if you can’t trust coach to take it home with a 25-point lead in the third quarter, how can you ever trust him in any other game?

I realize saying all of this makes it seems like me picking the Falcons is a typo but it’s not. I would like to think that the Falcons learned from the worst collapse of all time and learned from their absurd red-zone play calling in the playoffs against the Eagles eight months ago, which eliminated his team from the postseason. This has to be the Falcons coaching staff’s last chance to figure it out as the Falcons’ window of opportunity is closing fast.

As for the Eagles, I have only ever rooted for them once in my life and that was in the Super Bowl. Barring the same matchup in a future Super Bowl, I will never root for them again. I can see the Eagles having a disappointing season following a championship because it just makes too much sense for them not to. But at the same time I want Nick Foles to succeed to cause the greatest quarterback controversy in history and tear the team and its fan base apart.

CLEVELAND +5.5 over Pittsburgh
No, this isn’t a Hard Knocks pick. Because if I learned anything from Hard Knocks it’s that Hue Jackson should no longer be the Browns head coach. I have no idea how any player can listen to or respect a coach who has gone 1-31 over the last two seasons. And while he wasn’t exactly given the best rosters to work with, he’s still the head coach of both a 1-15 and 0-16 team, and it will be very easy for his players to tune him out if this season doesn’t start well. But Jackson is likely still the head coach because it’s hard to sell any well-respect coaching candidate on taking the Browns job right now. Anyone with success who is in the mix for a head coaching job isn’t about to take the Cleveland job and ruin their career. So for now, Jackson gets to keep his job and gets to wear jeans when he lets players know they are being released.

This pick isn’t about that much-improved Browns. It’s more about the overrated Steelers. I understand the Steelers, like the Cowboys, enjoy an inflated line because of their national following, but the Steelers aren’t good. I don’t even think they are a playoff team this season. This season is the end for Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh and it starts in Week 1 with a poor showing in Cleveland.

NEW YORK GIANTS +3 over
The Giants first-half schedule is possibly the hardest schedule ever created in the history of the NFL. It’s hard to say the Giants should beat a true Super Bowl contender in Week 1, but they kind of have to if they want to avoid losing their season before it even begins with their schedule.

I don’t know how the offensive line is going to hold up against the Jaguars defense or how the Giants defense is going to handle Leonard Fournette or what to expect from Pat Shurmur as head coach, but it all better work out.

Tennessee +1 over MIAMI
The Titans were a playoff team last year and the Dolphins were one the year before and might have been again last season if not for having to play Jay Cutler.. Yet, this game feels like an absolute borefest.

BALTIMORE -7.5 over Buffalo
Nathan Peterman is starting for the Bills. That doesn’t seem like a great idea given his performance last season.

Houston +6.5 at NEW ENGLAND
The Texans nearly, and should have, pulled off the upset on the road against the Patriots last season. This pick is more about me not wanting the Patriots to win and win big than it is that I actually think the Texans will win or cover.

MINNESOTA -6.5 over San Francisco
I watched the NFC Championship Game with Brittni in a bar across from the Staples Center before Rangers-Kings. After the Vikings’ opening-drive touchdown I was so mad I hadn’t put even more money on the Vikings than I had. But as the game went on and I watched Brittni’s mood decline, I was happy I only gave back all the money Stefon Diggs had won me the week before and a little more.

The Vikings were a final four team with Case Keenum as their quarterback and without Dalvin Cook for nearly the entire season. I’m not the biggest Kirk Cousins fans, but he’s certainly better than Keenum and Cook is back from his ACL injury, and the Vikings defense will be as good as it has been now for the last three seasons.

NEW ORLEANS -10 over Tampa Bay
I like to do a weekly seven-point teaser during the season aside from the usual straight bets just to make things interesting. This week’s teaser is a five-team teaser (3.5-to-1 odds):

NYG +10
MIN +0.5
HOU +13.5
BAL -0.5
GB -0.5

The teaser was originally a six-team teaser with NO -3, but after looking back at their home games last year, I remember too many times needing them to score late to cover for me (especially in their win over the Jets) that I decided to remove them. I still think they will win big against the Bucs and I still think they are once again a playoff team this season, but the Superdome Saints can’t be trusted the way they could a few years ago, and I don’t want them destroying that teaser.

Cincinnati +1 over INDIANAPOLIS
I had to look up to see if Marvin Lewis is still the head coach in Cincinnati, and he is. This is his 15th season as head coach of the Bengals and he has as many career playoff wins as me. How is that not an issue for Bengals ownership? Why are NFL owners so soft when it comes to changing the person responsible for running their multi-billion-dollar business?

KANSAS CITY +3 over Los Angeles
I originally wrote KANSAS CITY +3 over San Diego and several times this week I tried to look up the Chargers schedule by searching for San Diego. It’s like after the New Year when you continue to write the previous year except that only last a few days or maybe a week. The Chargers have now played a full season in Los Angeles and my brain still thinks they play in San Diego. I’m starting to realize why they don’t have a fan base.

CAROLINA -3 over Dallas
The Cowboys are going to be bad. Very, very, very, very bad. And it makes me giddy just thinking about how bad they are going to be. Jason Witten retired, they released Dez Bryant and Dan Bailey, they’re without their best offensive lineman, their quarterback can’t throw the ball more than seven yards and their No. 1 receiver is Cole Beasley. I wish you could see the smile on my face while typing this paragraph.

WASHINGTON +1 over Arizona
I have never been an Alex Smith fan, but he’s not bad. He takes care of the ball, makes good decisions for the most part and is reliable. He’s basically the opposite of Sam Bradford.

DENVER -3 over Seattle
It’s too bad the Seahawks have gradually regressed since Pete Carroll made the worst call in sports history on the goal line in the Super Bowl. (Yes, that’s the second Pete Carroll Super Bowl disaster reference in these picks. I will never pass up a chance to reference that decision.) The Seahawks were a Marshawn Lynch one-yard run away from winning back-to-back Super Bowls. Instead they lost the Super Bowl, thanks to their coach, lost in the divisional round the next season, lost in the first round the season after that and missed the playoffs last season. Now, the Seahawks look like they will have their worst team in a decade. That’s too bad.

GREEN BAY -7.5 over Chicago
This has trap game written all over it. Between being a division game in primetime and having a touchdown-plus spread to being the last thing I will potentially need to hit to win my five-team teaser, I’m petrified of this game. But I know if I pick the Bears to cover and they go down 7-0 two minutes into the game in an eventual blowout, I will be way more angry at myself than if they’re somehow able to keep it close and cover.

New York Jets +7 over DETROIT
I wanted the Giants to draft Sam Darnold. It’s not that I think Eli Manning is done or that it’s time to move on. It’s that the Giants should have drafted under the premise that they won’t be drafting second overall again for a long, long time, and when there is a possible generational talent available like Darnold, you take him, groom him and then turn the team over to him. But since the front office decided Manning still has a few years left, it would have only caused a weekly shitstorm every time the Giants lost with fans calling for Darnold to start. I think once it was decided Manning could still play, the organization wasn’t about to create their own media relations circus. I hate the Jets, but I’m rooting for Darnold.

Los Angeles Rams -7 over OAKLAND
Raiders fans are nostalgic for the return of John Gruden, but I don’t think that will last long. Following Gruden forcing Khalil Mack out of Oakland in his prime, Gruden approval rating leash got very short even if he does have a decade-long deal to run the Raiders. The moment Gruden’s hiring was announced I felt it would eventually turn into a disaster and the process started before he even coached a game.