Predicting The Critical 2024 Giants Schedule: Weeks 13-18

For the third consecutive season, the Giants meet the Seattle Seahawks, and for the second time in those past three seasons, it’s a trip to the Pacific Northwest that awaits Big Blue. Seattle endured a devastating opening to their offseason with both Pete Carroll stepping away and their best safeties exiting in Free Agency, but the team did draft Byron Murphy II in the NFL Draft. New coach Mike Macdonald will likely roll forward with incumbent Geno Smith for this season, with Lock now a member of the Giants.

In 2020, the Giants stunned the then-Russell Wilson-led Seahawks in early December in Seattle. An early December return to the Pacific Northwest may just yield the same results.

Week 14: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

At the close of the last decade, the Giants and Buccaneers played in every single season from 2017 to 2021, with the Giants coming out on top in only one of those contests. The Giants seek to change the momentum in this series back to their side with this contest, which should come at a critical point for the NFC South race the Buccaneers will surely find themselves embroiled in.

Tampa brings back most of their 2023 roster, including Baker Mayfield, who secured his near-future with Tampa with a 115 million dollar contract this offseason. If the Giants are still in playoff contention by this point in the year, a win over the Mayfield-led Bucs would go a long way to securing a Wild Card slot, potentially over the losers of the NFC South.

Week 15: Baltimore Ravens (Saturday)

Every year, the NFL puts together a series of late-season contests on Saturdays at the close of the College Football season. It would be no surprise, then, if this matchup between the Giants and Ravens is brought into one of the Saturday slots of Week 15.

New York has been the only NFC team to defeat Lamar Jackson in his career, a 24-20 decision in Week 6 of the 2022 season. To beat the Ravens again in this matchup, especially with a defense as dominant as Baltimore had in 2023 and should remain excellent in 2024, would be no easy task.

Week 16: At Philadelphia Eagles

Unfortunately for Big Blue, the final road game of the 2024 season will be against the same team that 2023’s final road game took place against. On Christmas Day 2023, the Giants gave the Eagles a scare, but the Eagles won in their only victory of the final month of the season.

Regardless of what state New York arrives to Philadelphia in, beating Saquon Barkley in his new home would be an incentive for the team to fight hard and deny the Eagles a run at the NFC East crown for a second consecutive season. After all, the NFC East hasn’t had a repeat champion in two decades.

Week 17: Cincinnati Bengals

The Giants have come out on top of both recent matchups with the Bengals, but this will be the first time the Giants face Joe Burrow in an NFL game, something that didn’t happen in 2020 after Burrow’s season ended in Week 11.

The Bengals should be back at full song all throughout 2024, and will likely contend for the AFC North crown deep into December. New York’s new-look defense will face one of its biggest tests with this matchup, with the team also meeting Ja’Marr Chase for the first time in a regular-season matchup. This assumes Tee Higgins will also remain a Bengal in 2024.

Week 18: Dallas Cowboys

Every season must close with a matchup within your division. In 2021, the Giants faced the then-Washington Football Team in Week 18, and 2022 and 2023 featured matchups with the Eagles. This leaves the Cowboys to head to East Rutherford in the season’s final weekend for the first time since 2020.

The Giants came out on top in Week 17 of 2020, temporarily keeping their NFC East title chances alive until late in the evening. In 2024, the Giants may not be in contention to win the division, but this contest could either help secure back-to-back division titles for the Cowboys, or the Giants could play spoiler once more and deny the division of their first repeat champion in decades.

In Conclusion…

The 2024 NFL Schedule will tentatively be released next Wednesday, May 15th. The 272 games that will feature several new international contests will also feature 17 games for Big Blue. Tune in next week as we will piece together what we did get right from this hypothetical 2024 schedule and attempt to predict the real Giants schedule.