If the numbers and stats and analytics depict the most accurate scenarios, then the Giants, according to ESPN analytics, have a 0.4 percent chance of making the playoffs.
That’s their reality.
Same with the Jets.
Both New York teams — navigating eerily similar quarterback dilemmas and offensive line woes — enter their final four weeks with fans balancing the desire to latch onto dwindling postseason hopes with the lure of combing through mock drafts.
But the past four weeks have shown that numbers and stats and analytics don’t necessarily capture everything.
The Giants have reshaped their season with three wins around their bye and ignited the legend of Tommy DeVito. The Jets, well, they have used Tim Boyle, Trevor Siemian and Zach Wilson at quarterback during that stretch, and their 30-6 clinic against the Texans on Sunday felt more like an anomaly than a glimpse of something that could get repeated.
Their paths have diverged since Week 8, when DeVito finished with minus-1 passing yards.
So when the Giants travel to New Orleans on Sunday, their 0.4 percent — or 2 percent in The Upshot’s 2023 playoff simulator in the New York Times — feels significantly different than that of the Jets, which The Upshot computes at less than 1 percent.
Maybe there’s an unquantifiable chicken cutlet curve.
An “Italian Stallion” agent boost.
The Giants sit 12th in the NFC but just one game behind the Packers for the final NFC wild-card berth, and with a win against the Saints, everything gets even more interesting. The Giants have DeVito’s magic on their side. They possess the NFL’s feel-good story.
They have all of the ingredients to turn this surreal stretch into a storybook ending.
Even if that never comes close to materializing, if they lose against the Saints and all that hope evaporates, at least they have a chance. That makes these games, at the very least, meaningful.
If the Giants somehow snuck into the playoffs, they’d become just the fifth team in history to make the postseason after a 1-5 — or worse, in Big Blue’s case — start, joining Washington in 2020, the Colts in 2018, the Chiefs in 2015 and the Bengals in 1970.
A win Sunday bumps their chances to 5 percent, per The Upshot’s upshot. Nineteen percent if they go on to pull the upset at Lincoln Financial Field on Christmas Day. They’ll need to beat the Eagles at least once, otherwise their number dips beneath one percent.
Still, the Giants have a different aura surrounding their games. When they were 2-8 after getting crushed by 32 points in Dallas, with Daniel Jones out with a torn ACL and the undrafted rookie DeVito as their signal-caller, dreams of USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye emerged. Brian Daboll even fielded questions about his job security. The Giants were, by any and every account, a disaster.
But no one thought Washington would be a postseason team in 2020, not when their franchise was a chaotic disaster and turned to Alex Smith and Taylor Heinicke. Washington won five of its final seven games. Then they came within eight points of knocking out the Buccaneers in the wild-card round before Tom Brady eventually won his final Super Bowl.
No one thought the Colts would make the playoffs in 2018, either, until they won nine of their final 10. Andrew Luck had just missed all of 2017 following shoulder surgery. And Marlon Mack running for 900 yards? Really?
Same with the Chiefs in 2015, when they flipped a five-game losing streak into a 10-game winning streak. Running back Jamaal Charles tore his ACL early in the season, but then Smith — five years before he sprinkled some pixie dust in Washington — helped orchestrate an incredible stretch that even featured a postseason victory. It didn’t make sense.
But that’s the thing about these unexpected playoff runs. They defy logic. There’s always moments when it just doesn’t seem feasible, sustainable or even believable.
That might have been Monday night at MetLife — from DeVito and agent Sean Stellato dominating broadcast time like Taylor Swift at a Chiefs game to the family tailgate and hundreds of chicken cutlets in the parking lot — when the Giants toppled the Packers with DeVito threading all four of his passes on that final drive and then embracing Daboll after Randy Bullock’s game-winning field goal.
DeVito’s path to this point hasn’t been linear.
He lost the starting job at Syracuse, said the decision by former head coach Dino Babers was a “shock,” transferred to Illinois and rebuilt his career.
DeVito dealt with injuries with the Orange, poor offensive line play and, eventually, a reliance on star running back Sean Tucker. He couldn’t run an offense at SU, let alone the two-minute drill in the fourth quarter of a December NFL game to keep his hometown team’s postseason hopes alive for another week.
Things are different now, and while the run lasts, anything seems possible.
Even the most accurate postseason simulators can’t account for those feel-good odds.
Today’s back page
Ohtani and oh, there’s more
Andrew Friedman never would have proposed a deal like this.
He didn’t have the “guts,” he said Thursday.
So when Shohei Ohtani’s camp came to him with some version of a 10-year, $700 million deal that deferred all but $2 million per season until after it ended, Friedman couldn’t believe it. He called some of his other players, he said in an interview on MLB Network, and they, somehow, loved Ohtani more.
When Ohtani was introduced Thursday at Dodger Stadium, he said part of the Dodgers’ pitch that sold him revolved around them describing their one World Series title — despite regular postseason appearances — across the past decade as being a failure. They wanted more championships.
Ohtani hasn’t even appeared in an MLB postseason game, but he wanted to be at the center of playoff runs.
It was the perfect scenario for one of baseball’s most prominent teams. Their deep lineup — with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and others — somehow got stronger. And Ohtani’s selfless approach with the deferred-money contract ensured they could keep adding, which they did Thursday by acquiring starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow and outfielder Manuel Margot in a trade from the Rays.
“I figured, I mean, if I can defer as much money as I can, if that’s gonna help the CBT and that’s gonna help the Dodgers be able to sign better players and make a better team, I felt like that was worth it and I was willing to go in that direction,” Ohtani said, via interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, at his press conference.
The news of the Dodgers’ trade with the Rays broke around two hours after Ohtani was introduced.
Glasnow, who made just 23 combined starts the past two seasons while dealing with Tommy John recovery and an oblique injury, is a Cy Young candidate when healthy, and the Dodgers intend to sign him to a contract extension. Margot flashed potential in 2022 before a knee injury. Pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, another one of the Dodgers’ top offseason options, could make his decision soon, deciding among the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Mets and others.
It hasn’t taken long for Friedman to maximize the flexibility that Ohtani’s unprecedented contract provided. There’s also a clause in the deal that allows Ohtani to opt out if Friedman or owner Mark Walter no longer hold their roles within the organization, providing some of the best job security possible for a front-office member.
“Everybody has to be on the same page in order to have a winning organization,” Ohtani said. “I feel like those two are at the top of it and they’re in control of everything, and I feel like almost I’m having a contract with those two guys. … I just wanted like a safety net.”
Just days after landing Ohtani, and just hours after officially introducing him as he posed around Dodger Stadium and in his new uniform with a blue No. 17, the pieces required for the perfect Dodgers scenario have already started to settle into place.
What’s a bowl game anymore?
When college football’s bowl season begins Saturday with a seven-game slate, it will mark the latest annual reminder of how different the sport’s postseason landscape looks than in the past.
Anticipation for bowl placement gets followed by the mystique of which players actually will play.
Williams and Maye — the quarterback prospects who potentially will be the top two selections in April’s NFL Draft — won’t appear in the Holiday or Mayo Bowl, respectively, for USC and North Carolina. Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman and offensive lineman Joe Alt plan to skip, too.
CBS Sports, in a 2018 story, considered running backs Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette as two of the first stars to sit out these postseason games ahead of the NFL Draft.
The bowl games always will have some added resonance, especially for fans of the program, stars at smaller Power 5 schools getting a final farewell or reserves getting a chance at a grand introduction. There will always be players such as Heisman Trophy finalist Bo Nix, playing one more game for Oregon instead of skipping the Sun Bowl game against the Fighting Irish.
“I want another opportunity to play with my teammates,” Nix told reporters about his decision to play in the bowl game. “I want another opportunity to play for Oregon. … I don’t want to end the season like that. I want another opportunity to go out there and have a blast and go out there and have fun.”
But as these games lose their stars, and as the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams next season, it could hurt the relevance of the matchups viewed as the best of the non-playoff — or even non-New Year’s Six — games.
As in the case of Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, players could opt out of the postseason games if they’re entering the transfer portal, too. Sports Illustrated and USA TODAY have 10 star players listed who have announced their plans to skip.
Bowl games will continue to get plenty of resources poured into them. The Cheez-It Bowl always generated attention, and this year, the Pop-Tarts Bowl reportedly will have an edible mascot. The winning coach in the Mayo Bowl always gets drenched in mayonnaise.
The games themselves, though, just may not have the stars.
What we’re reading 👀
🏈 The Post’s Brian Costello calls for more recognition for Quinnen Williams, “the best player the Jets have had since a young Darrelle Revis.”
🏈 You have to read these Wink Martindale comments on Kayvon Thibodeaux’s breakout in Year 2 with the Giants. “Football savant,” anyone?
🏀 The Nets (13-11) were light work for the defending champions in Denver on the tail end of a brutal back-to-back.
🏀 Basketball Hall of Famer George McGinnis died Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest. Once a star in the ABA on the same level as Dr. J, McGinnis was almost a Knick … until the NBA intervened and vetoed a deal that would have teamed him with Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe. The Post’s Mike Vaccaro details what could have been.
⚾ Aaron Boone outlines injury-plagued slugger Giancarlo Stanton’s plans to get “lighter” and “leaner” this offseason and possible play some outfield in 2024.
🏒 K’Andre Miller returned to the Rangers without elaborating on the “personal issue” that sidelined him and without clarity on his status for Friday night’s game.
🏈 The Raiders did what now? Aidan O’Connell led the way in a 63-21 rout of the Chargers on “Thursday Night Football.” Brandon Staley ax incoming?
🏈 Is there a more confounding rule in sports than a fumble out of the end zone resulting in an offensive turnover? Well, it appears the NFL may finally be ready to do away with a call that has elicited more than a few curse words from fans on Sunday afternoons.