{"id":691300,"date":"2026-01-20T14:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T14:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691300\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T14:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T14:05:13","slug":"john-harbaughs-giants-playoff-standard-fits-nfl-parity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/691300\/","title":{"rendered":"John Harbaugh\u2019s Giants playoff standard fits NFL parity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At quick glance, one of John Harbaugh\u2019s first proclamations after officially becoming the Giants\u2019 head coach was a bold one. An incredibly daring one, even.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI expect and want to make the playoffs next year,\u201d Harbaugh <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/17\/sports\/john-harbaugh-immediately-talking-giants-playoffs-jaxson-dart-after-inking-deal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told The Athletic over the weekend<\/a>, because of course he did.<\/p>\n<p>What coach would say \u201cI expect and want to make the playoffs at some point, but it might take three years\u201d and expect to wind up with the keys to the franchise?<\/p>\n<p>But the Giants have been locked in a struggle with mediocrity for more than a decade, dating back to their last Super Bowl win to end the 2011 season. They went 4-13 with a rookie quarterback in 2025 and <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/10\/sports\/giants-fire-brian-daboll-after-another-awful-meltdown\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fired their coach in November<\/a>. Big Blue\u2019s roster has talent, sure, but there were plenty of moments this season when the Giants felt a stratosphere away from landing a spot in the postseason tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At quick glance, one of John Harbaugh\u2019s first proclamations after officially becoming the Giants\u2019 head coach was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[8213,53,7,519,2909,249,1917,56,2321,2469,6,84,7195,9,3248],"class_list":{"0":"post-691300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-beyond-the-back-page","9":"tag-buffalo-bills","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-giants","12":"tag-john-harbaugh","13":"tag-new-england-patriots","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-giants","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkgiants","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-nfl-playoffs","20":"tag-post-sports-newsletters","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115927812009269275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}