Daniel Jones giants
Vincent Carchietta | USA TODAY Sports

Giants fans do not want to hear this — and understandably so — but the team has regression written all over it this fall.

The latest sign? How the NFL drew up its 2023 season schedule.

The Giants have five primetime dates on their slate. Four of them will be played in the first six weeks of the season, and three will be in the first four weeks. And the only post-October game — Monday Night Football against the Packers in Week 14 — comes after ESPN’s flex scheduling window kicks in.

The message is pretty clear: The league and its broadcast partners wants to capitalize on the Giants’ renewed relevancy. But they want to squeeze as much juice from the fruit before it potentially begins to spoil.

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Barring a complete catastrophe — which, to be fair, we have seen from this team on several occasions in recent years — the Giants will be in the mix for the first two months. And if they are not after that? No big deal; the ratings hay will already be in the barn.

The Giants won a bunch of one-score, come-from-behind games last season. And if not for their playoff win over a pretender Vikings team, the lasting memory would have been that they only won two of their final eight regular season games.

Throw in the fact the offense still has questions (starting with whether Daniel Jones can continue to ascend) and the defense will be hard-pressed to replicate last year’s success and it is very possible this team crashes back to Earth. This feels like seven or eight wins to us.

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James Kratch can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.

James Kratch is the managing editor of ESNY. He previously worked as a Rutgers and Giants (and Mike Francesa) beat reporter for NJ Advance Media.