House of horrors could put early end to season

PHILADELPHIA — The Giants could not make it out of September before facing a game to determine their season. It got late awful early, mainly because of their awful offense, and here they are, in their house of horrors, needing to win, or else.

“The New York media is tough,’’ running back Orleans Darkwa told The Post. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s counting us out. It puts us in a position, it gives us that extra motivation, puts that chip on our shoulder to go out there and really play for ourselves. Backs against the wall attitude, I guess you could say that.’’

Good guess. The Giants are 0-2 and have made it difficult on themselves to have the season they envisioned. At 0-3, difficult morphs into impossible — since 1999, no team that lost its first three games rebounded to qualify for the playoffs. Losses to the Cowboys and Lions featured a woeful offensive attack that at times barely bothered to show up — the Giants are 31st in the NFL in time of possession. This is no way to stagger into Lincoln Financial Field, where the Giants have lost three straight in their least favorite venue, and have lost five of their past six games to the rival Eagles.

“We kinda dug ourselves in a hole, we kind of set ourselves for this matchup to be tougher than recently planned,’’ running back Shane Vereen said this week on WFAN.

The Eagles have 50 points in their 1-1 start. The Giants have 13 points in their 0-2 offensive meander out of the gate. Perhaps the increasingly healthy Odell Beckham Jr. can rip through a depleted Eagles secondary, a possibility that can only come to fruition if Eli Manning is protected by his unsteady offensive line.

He is going to get hit. How hard, and how often, could determine if Manning and the Giants survive this one.

“You’ll go several weeks without taking a big hit and then sometimes you’ll get a bunch in a game,’’ Manning said. “It’s just about hanging in there and being tough.

Ben McAdoo, in his second season as head coach, is under fire. He did not deny the need for “drastic’’ changes and may cede the play-calling to offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan. On defense, the Giants have been good, not great. On offense, they have been dreadful.

“This week coming up is just as important a game as there could be right now,’’ Vereen said. “It’s about time, we either play or we don’t. We kind of screwed up the first two weeks so if we’re gonna turn it on we need to turn it on right now.

“It’s like Christmas in department stores. It gets earlier and earlier they start putting out the decorations.’’

Too early, the Giants are at their crossroads.