Big Blue must prove they aren’t as bad as winless record looks

THE GIANTS are what their record says they are, which is 0-3, one of five remaining winless teams in the NFL.

But, are they as bad as 0-3 suggests they are?

Are the Giants the sad sacks they’ve been portrayed as since their latest desultory defeat, last week’s 17-14 loss to a mediocre Falcons team on a day when Eli Manning’s number was being retired?

Or are they a team that’s been snakebitten by consecutive losses that were decided on the final play of the game? Half-full or pinned on empty? This is the question the Giants must answer for themselves as they get ready to travel to New Orleans to play the Saints (2-1) on Sunday. Another question: Do the Giants feel like an 0-3 team? “Oh-and-three doesn’t define us,’’ Giants cornerback Logan Ryan said Friday after practice. “I’ve never played a season where we only played three games. Right now in the standings of the NFL, the teams that are 3-0 may not be in the Super Bowl in the end. I never had a team be defined in September. “Obviously, I wish for a better record, but I can’t control that anymore. I can only control what happens in this New Orleans game. We all know football is how you play towards the end of the year. But you’ve got to keep yourself in the race and that’s what this is about.’’ The only way the Giants can keep themselves in any race — even in the mediocre NFC East — is to show the Saints and, most of all, themselves that they aren’t as bad as the 0-3 record they brought to the Big Easy. Behind closed doors, Giants head coach Joe Judge and his players have to be wondering: What if Dexter Lawrence hadn’t been called for that offsides penalty and that missed 48-yard field goal attempt by Washington kicker Dustin Hopkins had ended the game … before Hopkins was given a 43-yard do-over that he, of course, made? They have to be wondering: What if the defense hadn’t allowed the Falcons to score 10 points in the final 4:13, marching down the MetLife Stadium field in the final moments to set up Younghoe Koo’s 40-yard winning field goal on the game’s final play?

“What-if ?’’ is a loser’s lament that can become a dangerous game if you allow yourself to sugarcoat manure into something it’s not.

But Judge and the Giants, whose season is teetering on the brink only a month in, need to grasp something positive. So, maybe believing that they’re that close to being 2-1 instead of 0-3 is a healthy thing for the Giants’ sabotaged psyches.

“I’m not an excuse-making guy,’’ Judge said Friday. “The players aren’t excuse-makers. We don’t sit in here and say, ‘If this, then that.’ What we look into is just very simply, what do we have to do on the field to correct and how’s that going to give us a greater chance to have success?

“I’m very pleased with the way the guys have responded. Our guys have a lot of mental toughness. Our guys come in every week, they respond. It doesn’t matter what the result is the week before.’’

What Judge is preaching may be true, but the fact is his teams have been liabilities in endgame scenarios since his arrival. The Giants are 3-5 in games decided by three points or fewer since the beginning of 2020.

Is that a trend or an anomaly?

We’ll know a lot more about these Giants after Sunday at the Superdome, which is certain to be a hornet’s-nest, with the Saints playing their first home game of the season after being displaced for the past month by Hurricane Ida.

The Superdome is a handful for the road team. This Sunday is sure to be a super-charged version of the normal madness because it will be the first time the stadium has been filled with fans since 2019, before COVID-19. It may rival the atmosphere for the 2006 return of football after devastating Hurricane Katrina.

This is what Judge has tried to prepare his players for this week.

“It’s going to be in one of the best atmospheres we’ll ever have an opportunity to be in as a coach or a player,’’ Judge said. “It’s something we have to prepare for and embrace. The best look you can really have for what we’re about to see on Sunday is you got to go back in time to that Katrina game.’’

The Saints ripped the Falcons 23-3 in that Sept. 25, 2006 game. It is widely regarded as the most emotionally charged game ever played in that building, which weeks before had essentially become a morgue for Katrina victims.

As if the Giants aren’t facing enough trying to figure out who and what they are, this added degree of difficulty is daunting.