NFL awards predictions: Will any Giants take home some hardware?

Entering the 2022 NFL season, oddsmakers didn’t have high expectations for the Giants. They were coming off a four-win campaign in 2021 and had suffered five straight seasons with six or fewer wins, cycling through three head coaches before hiring Brian Daboll in the offseason. 

Boy, what a difference that move made. The Giants erased the stains of those previous losing seasons with its first playoff run since 2016, all while boasting the league’s best record against the spread (13-4) and consistently rewarding bettors who believed in one of the NFL’s biggest preseason long shots. 

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So, ahead of the team’s first playoff game in six seasons, here are the betting highlights and potential winners from a season to remember for the Giants: 

Winning season stuns bookmakers 

Just about every way you could slice it, oddsmakers were pessimistic of the Giants entering the year. And just about all of those concerns were quelled before the regular season even ended. 

The Giants were priced to win just 6.5 games at BetMGM — tied for the fifth-lowest mark in the entire league — and were dealing as high as -250 to miss the playoffs. Incredibly, they cashed the Over on their win total by midseason after a 7-2 start, but the team remained an underdog to make the playoffs for nearly the entire regular season. 

That finally flipped for good after a crucial win against Washington in Week 15, ending a four-game winless streak and all but guaranteeing New York a spot in the wild-card round. And while the Giants’ long-shot bid to win the division (+750) fell a few games short, they’re currently dealing at 66/1 to win the Super Bowl — a far cry from their 150/1 price at some books entering the year. 

An award-winning campaign 

While many futures markets have been graded after the end of the regular season, the league’s annual awards are still awaiting final results. And New York will have a few bites at the apple. 

Star running back Saquon Barkley, who missed 18 games over the last two seasons with knee and ankle injuries, is tied with Geno Smith for the shortest odds (+175) to win NFL Comeback Player of the Year. He’s got a heck of a case for it, too. After rushing for just 593 yards in 13 games last year, Barkley ranked fourth in rushing yards (1,312) and ninth in rushing touchdowns (10) in 2022 en route to his first Pro Bowl nod since his rookie season in 2018. 

While he almost certainly won’t win it, edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux owns the fourth-shortest odds for Defensive Rookie of the Year (66/1) after an inspired run to close the year. Over his last three starts, the fifth pick in April’s draft tallied 23 combined tackles and five tackles for loss — tied for fifth-most by any player since Week 15 — and his strip-sack score to beat Washington was arguably the biggest play of the Giants’ season. 

And then there’s Daboll, who would be a strong bet to win Coach of the Year in just about any other season. He’s currently dealing at 14/1 behind three other tremendous candidates, but that shouldn’t take away from the incredible job he’s done carrying New York from preseason castoff to its second playoff berth since winning the Super Bowl in the 2011-12 season. 

Speaking of which, there’s still one major award that’s entirely up for grabs: Super Bowl MVP. The Giants’ best shot of cashing in that market is polarizing passer Daniel Jones (66/1), which may seem crazy until you remember that his predecessor, Eli Manning, won the award twice (2008, 2012). Barkley is 80/1 at BetMGM to win it and as high as 150/1 elsewhere, while Thibodeaux, receiver Darius Slayton, and nose tackle Dexter Lawrence are all priced as 500/1 long shots.