With a chance to increase their lead in the NFC East race, the New York Giants instead fell, 20-14, to the Washington Redskins on Sunday and are no longer in the driver's seat.
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The division rivals are tied at 5-6 after the Philadelphia Eagles (4-7) and Dallas Cowboys (3-8) lost on Thanksgiving Day. Washington currently holds the tiebreaker with a 2-1 record in the division, while Big Blue dropped to 2-3.
"I just didn't think we played well, or we 'slept-walked,' whatever the word is," coach Tom Coughlin said after the game.
With that, here's what experts and analysts around the NFL are saying about Big Blue:
"It's a pretty bleak year for the NFC East when we enter December and every team in the division is below .500. In the last five weeks, NFC East teams have won a grand total of five games."
"What a wacky year in the NFC East, where each of the four teams has had at least a share of first place at one point this season."
"A win would have put the Giants two games clear of the rest of the division with five games to go, given them a big-time tiebreaker over Washington and had everybody fired up about playoffs and controlling destinies and all of that.
But the Giants don't make it easy on themselves, because it's very difficult for them to win games.
There's no chance they're going to win a game in which they're minus-3 in turnover differential, as they were Sunday. Turnover differential is the only reason their record is as good as it is. They've had positive turnover differentials in four of their six losses, for goodness' sake. Play them straight up, with no turnovers either way, and your chances to beat the Giants are strong-to-quite-strong."
"Odell Beckham did it again -- my goodness did he do it again. Every time he makes a spectacular play, it will immediately be billed as the catch of the decade due to his reputation, but is it ever deserved? Fault the Redskins all you want for leaving him in single coverage, but no defender was stopping Beckham from diving full extension with 5:04 left in the fourth quarter to haul in that pass. He landed perfectly parallel to the pylon as only Beckham could."
"The Giants refuse to conform. On the verge of prosperity, they wobble in the other direction. Dogged by adversity, they unexpectedly thrive. To the Giants, predictability is for losers, something they have now proved six times in 11 games this season. When the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys played haplessly on Thanksgiving, each going down to demoralizing defeat, the path finally seemed open for the first-place Giants to grasp a commanding lead in the feeble N.F.C. East. Instead, on Sunday, the Giants began their pivotal game against the host Washington Redskins with perhaps their worst half of football this season."
