The thing that I think is funny is that the team's WR room has always been full of backups this year and the "bend don't break D" has always been suspect. Yet after a loss when the Giants' blueprint of "make no mistakes/hang around until the 4th/somehow win the game?" doesn't work, the takes are suddenly different?
Look, this team isn't "fraudulent"; they're competed hard and don't give up despite their youth and limited talent. However, they operate in a very narrow spectrum of success; they cannot make too mistakes on O, they need Barkley and the run game to be successful, Daniel Jones has to have success in limited opportunities, and more specifically they can't turn the ball over. Look at the last 4-5 Giants wins and they all had tons of that blueprint where they were in it in the 4th and won... then in the Seattle game we saw
a) Barkley have tough sledding out there (20/53/1, 3/9), you had
b) Jones having to pass way more than you would have liked and not having much success, and that was because
c) Richie James two unfortunate turnovers forced the team way out of script. Injuries didn't help the situation, with Hudson not remotely looking like an effective Bellinger replacement. At the end of the day unless a big WR trade happens, the D markedly improves or
the Giants sign Kiko Jones Parker Jankovich Jones Parker III as a walk-on, this is how the Giants will have to compete in most games.