There’s no need to watch the Giants anymore. Not only because their season is over and they have nothing to play for, but because I know how every game will play out.

The Giants are unable to score touchdowns, they get behind, they stage a late comeback in garbage time to keep the score close and then either the defense can’t get a stop in the final minutes to get the ball back or the Giants need to recover an onside kick for a chance at a miracle win. Every week that same game unfolds and this week it was no different.

The league has made it virtually impossible to play defense in 2018, but not when it comes to playing against the Giants. The Giants scored just three points in the first half and 10 in the second half with seven of those 10 coming with the game over. They were held scoreless in two quarters and essentially scored six points in a home game … in 2018. Odell Beckham, Saquon Barkley, Sterling Shepard and Evan Engram are all on the Giants and the team scored six points in a home game … in 2018.

The only thing left to do when watching this team is laugh. Laugh at the offensive line, laugh at Eli Manning’s checkdowns to Barkley, laugh at Beckham’s big numbers in losses, laugh at Shepard’s drop, laugh at Engram’s all-around game, laugh at the defense when it needs one stop to potentially win the game, laugh at the offense on every red zone trip. And most of all, laugh at Pat Shurmur look completely bewildered and out of place on the sideline as head coach.

The new Giants regime royally screwed up. They looked at the 2017 Giants as anomaly and a team that dealt with injuries and turmoil and decided the team was closer to the 2016 version which won 11 games and not the 2017 version with won three. They built around a three-win team instead of rebuilding it and tried to patch up an offensive line when what they needed was a new boat. Prior to the season, Shurmur said the team would go as far as the offensive line would take them and the offensive line has brought them to one win in eight games.

Before the latest loss to the Redskins, the Giants got rid of another former first-round pick and a big free-agent signing. It was the first time the front office let it be known that they screwed up as they decided to start selling off pieces in an attempt to stock up on draft picks to actually rebuild. Everyone thought the Giants missed their chance at a quarterback of the future picking near the top of the draft in 2018 and no one thought they would be back in that spot for a long time. But they will be back in that same spot and possibly even at the top of the draft let alone near the top of it in 2019. They are every bit as unprepared, frustrating, undisciplined and flat-out bad as the other one- and two-win teams in the league and they have just as much of a chance as any of those teams at the first overall pick. The only difference is those teams were built on the idea of picking first in 2019. The Giants were built on finishing first in 2018.

The Giants won’t lose this week thanks to their bye. But when they return from a week off, they will have half of their season left with nothing to play for. When the 2017 season ended so early, the team gave up and decided that with nothing to play for, they weren’t going to play. This regime thought last season was an anomaly, but over the second half of the season, they will find out just how different this team is to last year’s, if it’s different at all. So far it is hasn’t been.

The Giants were finally going to show everyone their offense on Monday night in Atlanta. Between their new-look offensive line, their healthy receivers, a Falcons defense which hadn’t allowed fewer than 29 points in the last four weeks and which has been the 31st-worst defense in the red zone this season, the Giants were going to put on an offensive display. And they did. They put on an offensive display of ineptitude.

None of the other five losses this season were as bad as the Giants’ sixth loss to the Falcons. It was possibly the single-worst Giants game I ever watched. The loss to the Eagles had been bad considering it was a short week, the Giants’ season was on the line and the Eagles had to travel on the short week and still embarrassed the Giants, but this was even worse. The Giants had nearly 11 days from the end of the Eagles loss to kickoff on Monday night to plan for the Falcons, and their game plan produced three first-half points.

The Giants were unable to get into the end zone against the second-worst red zone defense in the league until the game was nearly over. In typical Garbage-Time Giants fashion, the offense quickly put together two touchdowns near the end of the game to lose 23-20, tricking those who didn’t watch the game in full into thinking it was a close game, the same way they have done in prior losses this season. The new-look offensive line might have been the worst of the three we have seen this season as Eli Manning was sacked four times and pressured and hit so often it felt like five Ereck Flowers were blocking for him.

Pat Shurmur, who is completely lost as a head coach, called unsuccessful play after unsuccessful play in the red zone, failed to score on fourth-and-1 on the goal line and then inexplicably went for a two-point conversion despite potentially making it a seven-point game with 4:47 left in the fourth quarter. Odell Beckham dropped the two-point play and after the game Shurmur defended his decision, citing a 50-percent increase in chances of winning had the play been successful and had the Giants scored another touchdown later. They did score another touchdown later, but it was only after the defense let the Falcons go down the field and only after yet another kicker drilled a miracle field goal against the Giants.

Shurmur once again talked about “battling” in his press conference, as if this Giants team has battled at all this season. The offense doesn’t produce until the game is over and the defense can’t get a big stop or prevent any points from being put up when needed the most. He also mentioned how the team “isn’t going to do the math” but how they are instead going to “get ready for the Redskins” on Sunday. He might want to do the math. The math says the Giants are 1-6 and if winning 10 games gets you in the playoffs, which it doesn’t always, the Giants have to go 9-0 to reach the playoffs. Do the math, Shurmur. Your season is over.

This season essentially ended when Graham Gano’s 63-yard field goal handed the Giants their fourth loss of the season, but the true optimists still believed. Most of those optimists gave up after the Giants were run out of their own building four days later by the Eagles. Now, if there’s anyone who still calls themselves a Giants fan, who believes this team has a 9-0 run in them, what are you doing? Go out. Call a friend. Date. Binge-watch a show. Pick up a new hobby. Do something that’s not sitting around thinking the Giants are going anywhere other than the top of the 2019 draft.

The Giants are now 4-19 since the start of last season for a .174 winning percentage. If you thought the 2017 Giants were bad under Ben McAdoo, the 2018 Giants might actually be worse. Those Giants at least lost a few close games early in the season before injuries destroyed their depth and the team gave up. These Giants aren’t playing close games, have been mostly healthy all season and if they haven’t given up yet, it’s going to be scary to watch what it’s like once they finally have.

It’s been a week since the Giants’ season ended and with 11 weeks left of regular-season football and then the playoffs and Super Bowl and the cold, dark days of January and February inching closer, it’s been hard to handle. All of that coupled with the Yankees’ playoff loss to the Red Sox, who are likely going to win the World Series, and the Rangers playing for nothing this season has me looking to pick up some new hobbies. What do people who don’t like sports do for fun? That’s a question I need to answer and answer fast because the next meaningful game I will watch will be the Yankees’ first game in 2019.

When it comes to the picks, it’s been a pretty blah season. Well, it was a pretty blah season before last week’s 3-11-1 embarrassment. At least I finally got a push to create a tie column like so many teams in the NFL this season. Unfortunately, the Giants were routed, the Vikings didn’t cover by a 1/2 point, the Buccaneers blew a late chance to not only cover but win, the Browns reverted back to the Browns on the West Coast, the Panthers proved to be frauds, the Titans couldn’t score a single point in an NFL game in 2018, the Jaguars should have forfeited and saved the trip to Dallas and the Packers struggled against the C.J. Beathard. When you put together all of that, you get a 3-11-1 week. That’s going to be one big hole to climb out. Thankfully, there’s a lot of time left to do so. It’s time to starting chip away at the deficit.

Denver -1 over ARIZONA
The Cardinals are my biggest enemy this season. Why? Because they pose the biggest threat to the Giants for the No. 1 pick in the draft. I can’t believe the Giants are really going to be picking at or near the top again in the 2019 draft, but here we are. After last year’s 3-13 disaster, the team is already 1-5 this season. And even though the NFC East is as a weak as it’s ever been, the Giants would have go on either a 10-1 or 9-2 run the rest of the way to win the division. Yeah, that’s not happening.

Tennessee +7 over LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
When I first saw this line, my initial thought was “Charges in a teaser!” But then I remembered that this game is in London. The Chargers usually have enough trouble switching time zones in the United States and historically struggle when they go to the Eastern Time Zone. Now they are going past the Eastern Time Zone and across the pond to play a game that will be eight hours ahead of their internal clock. The Titans aren’t good by any means, but they are good to stay within a touchdown of a team that can’t handle jet lag.

Buffalo +7.5 over INDIANAPOLIS
If the Cardinals are the Giants’ biggest threat to the No. 1 pick in the draft, well, the Bills and Colts are their next two biggest threats.

I just had the thought that if this quarterback class turns out to be weak, the Giants could potentially use the top or near-top pick and turn it into a bunch of lower picks and try again with this same group, but slightly revamped in 2019. For those who think it’s time move on from Eli Manning (not me), this is their worst-case scenario. The second worst scenario for them would be to use the pick on a non-quarterback, which I think is what will actually happen.

New England -3 over CHICAGO
It’s crazy to see a line that has the Patriots as only a 3-point favorite over the Bears. It just looks wrong.

I bought into the Bears last week when I teased them to win in Miami. This Bears defense against Brock Osweiler just to win?!?! is what I thought. That didn’t go so well, and that’s all I need to jump off the 2018 Bears bandwagon for good.

PHILADELPHIA -5 over Carolina
Eff’n Panthers. All they had to do was go to Washington and beat the Redskins and keep the NFC East clustered together and improve to 3-0 against the division. Instead, they lost and they put a huge dent in my dream of a team winning the division at 7-9, or maybe even 6-10. The Panthers are the team everyone continues to think is good, but they aren’t. They will let you down with their inability to score and their overrated defense.

Unfortunately, Carson Wentz looks better and better each week since returning and I have a feeling the Eagles’ road rout of the Giants on Thursday Night Football will send them off on a run that returns them to the playoffs and destroys my preseason prediction that they would miss the playoffs. (Either that or that’s one great reverse jinx right there.)

MIAMI +3 over Detroit
I don’t care that the Lions are coming off their bye week and I don’t care who the Dolphins quarterback will be in this game. I will no longer pick against the Dolphins at home in what should be a close game.

Minnesota -3.5 over NEW YORK JETS
I will be in attendance with Brittni at this game, and the only thing that will keep me from going into depression over the Giants is if the Jets are the Jets. At 3-3 with a rookie quarterback, they are anything but the same old Jets right now, and that needs to change. I need a Vikings blowout on Sunday. I need it.

TAMPA BAY -4 over Cleveland
Everyone all set with the Baker Mayfield hype? OK, good. I’m not going to lie, I started to buy into the Browns as a good team in 2018, but last week proved they have a long way to go. While the Chargers are certainly better than the Buccaneers, it’s going to be a while until I can trust Mayfield to not destroy a game.

JACKSONVILLE -4.5 over Houston
That Jaguars debacle in Dallas last week? Yeah, I wagered on the Jaguars -3. The bad news is I lost. The good news is the game was over so fast I didn’t have to waste my afternoon into the early evening hoping for a miraculous cover or even a push.

The Jaguars are now 3-3 as the AFC South competes with the NFC East for the worst division in football. And the Jaguars’ loss to the Cowboys was both embarrassing for them and costly for the Giants, who lost another tiebreaker. What am I saying? Why do I even care about records and tiebreakers? The Giants season is over. O-V-E-R. They suck. It’s hard to have many tiebreakers with one win.

But back to the Jaguars. They are returning home to play the only team the Giants have beat in the Texans. The Texans haven’t lost since their loss to the Giants, but I don’t buy them getting hot at 3-3 now. They are still the Texans and they still can never be trusted. Give me the Jaguars at home coming off the humiliating loss to the very bad Cowboys.

New Orleans +2.5 over BALTIMORE
The Saints’ slow start to the season appears to have been a fluke and they look every bit like the team that should have gone to the NFC Championship Game if not for the greatest game-winning play in the history of football. Normally, I would be against picking the Saints outside against a strong defense, but if I’m right about the Saints, this game won’t be a problem.

WASHINGTON -1 Dallas
This game will be depressing to watch since it’s a reminder that the NFC East was there for the taking for the Giants and they screwed it up. Last season, they sucked, but when you look at the type of season the Eagles had, the Giants were never going to win enough games to win the division. This season though? This season the Giants could have won the division. As you can tell, I’m over the Giants throwing away another year.

Los Angeles Rams -10 over SAN FRANCISCO
I don’t know what this line would have to be for me to not take the Rams. -21? -24? -28? I think -28 might keep me away from picking the Rams, but I wouldn’t feel good about it.

KANSAS CITY -6 over Cincinnati
Everyone loves offense in every sport. Not me. I like games where points or runs or goals are hard to come by. Where field position and baserunners and power plays matter. I don’t care for these ridiculous games where both teams are in the 40s, or in the case of Sunday Night Football, the 30s. The Chiefs and Patriots couldn’t have cared less about playing defense and everyone ate it up. It was sad.

The only thing we learned from the Chiefs’ first loss is that they aren’t to be taken seriously. That game gave the Patriots the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Chiefs and because there’s no doubt in my mind that the Patriots will reach the AFC Championship Game every season until Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are gone (if they ever leave), the Chiefs won’t be going to the Super Bowl. They can continue to be the Greatest Regular-Season Show ever, but they aren’t going to win a championship because of that loss. By the time the AFC Championship Game roles around, Belichick will have turned his crappy defense around and the Chiefs will be the same Chiefs.

NEW YORK GIANTS +4.5 over Atlanta
I could see the Giants going to Atlanta coming off nearly 11 full days of rest and beating a bang-up Falcons team and everyone thinking the Giants might go on some run because they beat the Falcons on the road.

I could also see the Giants getting embarrassed by a banged-up Atlanta team that can’t beat anybody right now.

The first option would likely sucker me back into thinking maybe, just maybe the Giants could get back in the division. The second option would have me upset that the Falcons won’t clean house of the coaching staff that handed the Patriots a Super Bowl.

Nothing good can come out of this game. Either the Giants win and they ruin their place in the 2019 draft or they lose and continue to be an embarrassment and the Falcons, who have cost me so much money over the last three seasons, win. There’s no result to root for in this game.

Last week: 3-11-1
Season: 33-44-1

Prior to the Giants’ crushing loss to the Panthers, I did the best thing I have done in a long time when it comes to the Giants: I gave up on Odell Beckham. After Beckham’s idiotic interview was released in which he questioned if he even likes being part of the organization that just made him the highest-paid receiver in the history of the league, I decided enough was enough. My decision to jump off the Beckham bandwagon couldn’t have come at a better time.

Beckham started the game against the Panthers with an unacceptable wide-open drop on fourth-and-3 to turn the ball over on downs. The Panthers possession as a result of his inexplicable drop ended with a punt, a punt in which Beckham was set to return. As the punt approached the ground, Beckham moved to his right to allow the punt to fall in, choosing to throw an unnecessary block instead. The ball hit his leg and rolled around near the Giants’ goal line, eventually getting jumped on in the end zone by the Panthers for a touchdown. In the span of two plays, Beckham had given the Panthers the ball near midfield and then he had given them a touchdown.

A couple Giants possessions later, Beckham threw a touchdown pass to Saquon Barkley on a trick play, and in the fourth quarter, Beckham would score his first touchdown of the season. He finished the game with eight catches for 131 yards, and there’s no doubt in my mind he thinks he did his job in the game. After having watched Beckham and his actions both on and off the field for the last four-plus years, there’s no way he realizes that he did as much harm as good, and really more harm than good in the game. The Beckham I have come to understand thinks his team let him down around him and not the other way around. It’s never his fault.

I have gone out of my way to defend Beckham being a Giant because of his on-field talent, and because when healthy, he’s the best wide receiver in the league. I have looked away when he has had his on-field meltdowns and sideline meltdowns and when he has done everything other than be a team player or a leader because of his talent. Talent is no longer enough for me to argue on his behalf.

There was this idea that Beckham would be different in 2018. He got to do whatever he wanted with Jerry Reese as general manager and with Tom Coughlin and Ben McAdoo as head coach, but for some reason, people thought he would change completely for David Gettleman and Pat Shurmur. Initially, Beckham did change, as he showed up to work in the summer and said all the right things. And then he changed back the minute he signed his name to a $95 million contract with $65 million guaranteed.

Shurmur became the first of the last three Giants head coaches to stand up to Beckham when he made him apologize for the interview and also fined him for it as well, but it apparently didn’t do any good as the same old Beckham was at MetLife Stadium for the Giants’ must-win game on Thursday night.

With two seconds left in the first half and the Giants trailing 24-6, Eli Manning and the offense took the field for the final play of an embarrassing half. Beckham didn’t take the field though. Instead, the $95 million wide receiver left the field and walked down the tunnel to the locker room.

Later in the game, after it became clear that the only bright spot in the game for the Giants was going to be Barkley, cameras found Beckham going wild on the sideline after a big Barkley play. This isn’t about to be Barkley’s team, at least not if Beckham has anything to say about it. So alone on the sideline, Beckham jumped up and down, yelling to no one and at no one in particular, just off in his own world acting crazy like he has done so many times before. Beckham hadn’t contributed much in the game before the outburst and didn’t end up contributing much in the game at all — six catches for 44 yards. Since his play wasn’t good enough to be a talking point for fans and viewers, he was going to make sure he drew attention to himself some other way.

The more the Giants lose, the more my dislike for Beckham grows and I think most Giants fans feel the same way. When you look at a team like the Eagles, they don’t have a Beckham. He has more talent than all of their wide receivers put together, and probably more than all of their offensive players put together. But the Eagles are a reminder that you don’t need a big-name wide receiver to win in this league. You need an offensive line and a pass rush, and when $95 million is tied up on a wide receiver, it’s hard to have either of those two things.

The Giants were coming off a losing season, in which they started 0-6, the year before Beckham arrived, and since he has arrived, they have had one winning season and played in one playoff game, in which his drops changed the game and ended the Giants’ season. The Giants were a losing team before Beckham and they have been one with him.

Beckham might be the best receiver in the league, but aside from a one-handed catch four years ago in Dallas and thousands of yards in losing seasons, he’s never done anything to earn the right to speak out against his quarterback, his teammates and the organization that made him the highest-paid player at his position. He’s never done anything to earn the right to act immaturely the way he has so many times. He’s never done anything as a Giant except come up small in every big moment. I’m over Odell Beckham.

The Giants’ season is over. Really, I knew it was over after the Week 2 loss in Dallas, but then the Giants sucked me back in with their Week 3 win in Houston, and the NFC East sucked me back in by letting the Giants hang around until Thursday night. Now I can finally give up on the 2018 New York Giants because there’s no coming back from the 34-13 loss to the Eagles. At 1-5, the Giants’ season is officially over.

I thought this year might be different. A new general manager and a new head coach gave me promise that last year’s 3-13 debacle wasn’t indicative of who the Giants really were. Coming off an 11-5 season and a postseason appearance, it was easy to blame injuries and the head coach for 2017. However, the 11-5 record in 2016 wasn’t indicative of who the Giants are. That season was the anomaly, not last. The Giants are still losing the team that got Tom Coughlin fired and the losing team that led to Ben McAdoo and Jerry Reese being so lost that they decided to bench Eli Manning for Geno Smith. The Giants flat-out suck, and I’m a fool for thinking this season would be different, and I’m an even bigger fool for thinking they would show up and save their season on Thursday night after the way they played through the first five games.

When the opening kickoff was fumbled by the Giants, I laughed. When it was reversed thanks to the ground causing the fumble, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Two plays later, when Manning tried to force a pass into a non-existent window to the third-string tight end and it was intercepted, I knew where the game was headed. But like a fool, I stuck around and wasted the next three hours of my life even though I knew the Giants were going to lose.

There really wasn’t much to the game. The Giants were outplayed and dominated by a much better team and a team that should have never been only a 1-point favorite against such an inferior opponent. The Eagles were are in another class when it comes to comparing them to the Giants, and traveling to MetLife off a disappointing home loss on a short week proved how much better they are than the Giants.

The game was over the second Manning forced that pass to the worst possible pass-catching option on the field. The rest of the game was just a formality to improve the Eagles to 3-3 and get them back on track, but I stuck around and watched.

I watched Manning dump off passes to Saquon Barkley as he feared for his life with the worst offensive line in the league protecting him. I watched Barkley be the only positive player yet again in yet another Giants loss. I watched Odell Beckham leave the field for the locker room despite the Giants being on offense with two seconds left in the first half as if the team had once again let him down. I watched Beckham freak out on the sideline after a big Barkley play as he tried to draw the cameras to him since he wasn’t doing anything in the actual game worthy of attention. I watched Aldrick Rosas miss a field goal near the end of the first half when the Giants couldn’t afford his first missed field goal of the season. I watched the defense once again hide behind the inconsistent play of the offense even though the Giants defense is every bit as bad as the Giants offense. And I watch Pat Shurmur look clueless once again on the sideline as his record as a head coach fell to 11-28.

It’s hard to believe that Shurmur is the right man to lead the Giants in the near future. When his team isn’t blowing winnable games or losing in the final seconds, they aren’t showing up. With the season on the line, you would think you would get the best possible effort, and if they were to lose to the defending Super Bowl champions, so be it. Instead, the Giants put together their worst effort of the season in the biggest game of the season. The home team on Thursday Night Football is supposed to have an unfair advantage with the short week, unless it’s the Giants. There is no advantage when it comes to the Giants.

I’m tired of hearing about the Giants and their history, but right now, that’s all the organization has: history. The Giants have been a bad team for a long time now, and there are no signs that’s going to change anytime soon. It’s certainly not going to change this season.

Whether it’s the actual play in the games or the antics on the sideline or the $95 million wide receiver giving outrageous interviews, in which he isn’t sure if he likes playing for the Giants, there’s nothing to like about the Giants. Nothing. They are a losing team full of losers who have never accomplished or won anything in their careers outside of the starting quarterback, whose fault these last few seasons seems to be.

The more the Giants lose, the more my dislike for Beckham grows. Up until last week, I had defended Beckham against the critics because of his talent and his abilities, but I jumped off the bandwagon at the perfect time heading into the Carolina game. When you look at a team like the Eagles, they don’t have a Beckham. He has more talent than all of their wide receivers put together, and probably more than all of their wide receivers, tight ends and running backs put together. The Eagles are a reminder that you don’t need a big-name wide receiver to win in this league. You need an offensive line and a pass rush, and when $95 million is tied up on a wide receiver, it’s hard to have either of those two things. The Giants were coming off a losing season, in which they started the year 0-6, before Beckham arrived, and since he has arrived, they have had one winning season and played in one playoff game, a game in which it was his drops that ended the Giants’ season. The Giants are a losing team with or without Beckham.

That’s not to say that the Giants’ problems are solely on Beckham, he’s just one of the problems, and he’s a big problem, from both a financial standpoint and a locker-room standpoint. This Giants team was built on the idea that they were more like the 11-5 team in 2016 and not like the 3-13 team in 2017, though it’s obvious they the front office was fooled like many Giants fans and that this team more closely resembles last season’s debacle. Ownership gave the green light to build for 2018 with a win-now mentality and it has backfired remarkably in that the Giants are nowhere near contending and they’re also not rebuilding. They are stuck in the middle, and that’s the worst place to be. For an ownership group that let Coughlin go for McAdoo and agreed with McAdoo to bench Manning for Smith, only turning on McAdoo once the backlash from the fan base and media grew to be too much, it’s no surprise they were wrong about how to handle this season.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the Cowboys and Redskins both lost this week and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Giants went to Atlanta on Monday night in Week 7 and beat the Falcons and then beat the Redskins at home in Week 8 headingin into their bye week with people believing they could go on some sort of second-half run. But I won’t be one of those people. I have seen enough and I won’t be sucked back in again. I’m done with the 2018 New York Football Giants.