It’s that time of year. Baseball season is wrapped up, the hot stove has yet to get crackling — but the NFL campaign is firing on all cylinders.

And thankfully, we have Justin Penik of Talkin’ Giants to catch us up on where things stand on the gridiron.

PENIK: For the Giants, they were probably looking most at the Colts. The Colts had two defensive tackles: DeForest Buckner went to the Niners, Grover Stewart wound up staying with the Colts, and then obviously Jonathan Taylor stays with the Colts too. That's a team that's bad and dysfunctional for a reason, and I thought the trade deadline really showcased how bad and dysfunctional they are — the fact that they kept so many players that probably had a good amount of value. And then of course Quenton Nelson is the guy that was shipped off like two weeks ago. The guy that had the most value, and they only got a 3rd and a 5th round pick for him. So that's the Colts. They're just so dysfunctional and bad, and they showed why they're in that position.

Cousins, I thought Vegas would be able to swing a 2nd round pick because that's how desperate the Vikings were. But I feel like that's a win-win for both organizations. It's a win for the Vikings for the position they already put themselves in — they had to give up a 3rd round pick for a quarterback that was in their building just two years ago, because of how bad the rest of their quarterback room is. And now J.J. McCarthy goes to the Giants and is seemingly performing really well. Wouldn't the Vikings be able to use somebody like that? It's really funny that they can only get a 5th round pick back for McCarthy, but they give up a 3rd round pick to get somebody who was already on their team two years ago. Crazy stuff.

And the Eagles — the thing that scares me about the Eagles is that their roster's not very good, especially their O-line, which is not as good as it once was. But they just have so many picks now. So many top-100 picks over the next three years, and that kind of scares me a little bit as a Giants fan. But they've got a lot to retool and get right on that team.

PENIK: I'm excited, because if there's anything Kirk Cousins showed so far this year, it's that that's a circumstance a young quarterback can be successful in. They're not the best team, but I think they have really good coaching with Kubiak now, and I think they're going to put him in a position to succeed. If they can put an old Kirk Cousins — whose arm has kind of fallen off a little bit and who's not really mobile at all — in a position to succeed, I think they're going to make things pretty easy on Mendoza.

He's going to play for a couple weeks and then get a bye week. I like that the Raiders still have their bye week coming up; that'll be good for him to kind of regroup. I think he was already pretty pro-ready, but now he's going into a situation where they're already winning games and there's already a good buzz in Vegas. So I'm excited for Fernando Mendoza.

PENIK: The rest of the division outside the Giants — they're just throwing up all over themselves. That's what's happening.

The Cowboys defense — I thought they were going to maybe be average this year. They're almost, if not worse than, what they were last year, especially the first half of last year. In the second half of last year the Dallas defense actually took some steps up and got seemingly better personnel-wise, and now they're just very, very bad. I don't think their players are very good. The coaching is not perfect there, but some of the mistakes the players are making — is the coach telling you to be in this bad spot? I certainly would hope not. So Dallas is a complete mess. I think everybody — whether it's Vegas, or playoff simulators and odds — is very much overrating what the Dallas Cowboys can do and be as a team, just because of their offense.

The Commanders came into the season with a bad roster and they have a bad record. That's not surprising.

But the Eagles — the health of that offensive line was going to be the thing that decided this division. If the Eagles offensive line was healthy and solid at the beginning of the year, the Eagles would probably be seriously winning this division right now, because that's how a good offensive line can elevate an entire football team. But Lane Johnson retired, Cam Jurgens got traded, Landon Dickerson is in and out of the lineup. So you have three of your five offensive linemen who are either not on the team or hurt, and now they've absolutely fallen apart as a team.

So you have three teams that are throwing up all over themselves, and then you have the Giants and John Harbaugh, who are gritty, who fight every second, who don't give up on games, who are a well-coached team, who have dealt with a lot of adversity themselves, and they're rising above it. I'm excited about that, man. Basically, if the Giants win tonight, they have this division locked up.

PENIK: I think we knew this should happen, but actually seeing it with our own eyes and getting to experience it is much different than just expecting it. Over the last two years I think the Giants were 2-15 in one-score games, and now they're like 4-0-1 in close games so far this year. So in half a season they've already doubled the number of one-score victories they had over the last two years, which is crazy.

Seeing the Harbaugh effect, seeing how the guys are rallying around John Harbaugh — they're finally getting a taste of success and victories and playing significant football in November. That's not something players on this team have had before, especially if you've been a long-tenured Giant over the last two, three, four years. And he's even brought guys in who also haven't had that kind of success. Of course we expected it, but it's just so awesome to be experiencing it live, in the moment.

PENIK: That has to be one of the most shocking things. I'm really glad you brought that up, because you almost forget the Chargers are 0-8 because of how bad they are. Herbert has an interception in every single game. You'd think Mike McDaniel is a match made in heaven — the Harbaughs have always been very good at running the ball, and McDaniel's run game is good, plus an explosive pass game, which is what he was doing in Miami with Tua, of all quarterbacks. So now you get Justin Herbert. That has to be the most shocking thing.

They play the Jets in a couple weeks. That may be their best chance to win one football game this year. I would be pretty surprised if they get to three wins with how they're playing right now. Out of all the teams that are good, bad, indifferent: that has to be the most shocking thing happening in the NFL right now — that Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh, where all Jim Harbaugh does is win, win, win wherever he goes, have not won a single game. And they look awful.

PENIK: When you're winless in the middle of November, it can't just be on one player. He does look bad. He is making very, very bad decisions with the football, so that can't be ruled out. But there's nothing working on offense, and they seemingly don't even have answers as to why. They're putting McDaniel up in the booth — like, all right, let's just try that, because let's just try something different. They're seemingly trying different things for the sake of trying new things without a why behind it, because that's how bad and dysfunctional it is.

There is nothing worse — and I've been there as a Giants fan. I think back to 2023, coming off that 2022 season, where you think your shit don't stink. You know, "We're playing well, we're going to go out there and take care of business." And then you get punched in the mouth. There is nothing worse and more shocking than having expectations to do well, getting punched in the mouth, and then not knowing what to do. So you're just trying things for the sake of trying things instead of having a why behind it. That's where they're at right now. Nothing is working. And they did nothing at the trade deadline, too. I don't think they did anything to sell off any of their pieces.

PENIK: There's no dominant team in the league right now. I would say maybe San Francisco has played the most complete football so far this year, but doesn't it feel like they're holding on by a thread injury-wise? They have so many guys on IR, so many guys that are hurt. I'm never ruling out Shanahan, regardless of how many guys are on that injury report. So San Fran may be the most complete team so far this year, but Chicago acquiring Jeffery Simmons absolutely changes things.

Jacksonville is playing really, really well right now too. I think they may be the most complete team in the AFC. I know Buffalo has Josh Allen, but their defense hasn't been very good.

What the Bengals have done as a football team should scare the rest of the AFC too. They completely revamped their defense: they added Dexter Lawrence, they added Jonathan Allen, they got Boye Mafe, who's been a really disruptive pass rusher so far this year. They can just rush four — they don't have to blitz that often — and they can get home and wreak havoc. They can play really good defense only rushing four, and that's the type of defense that translates in the postseason. And then of course you have Joe Burrow. Finally, Joe Burrow is, number one, healthy, and also finally has a decent defense where he doesn't have to score 45 points every single game to be in it.

So there's not one dominant team in the NFL right now. It's really hard to predict, and I kind of think that's a good thing.

PENIK: Here are two things I've made JM Football videos on:

Forced fumbles are up like 40% year over year, which is crazy. When you watch football — and I want you, as a reader and a consumer of Jomboy Media — pay attention to how often defenses are trying to attack the football, like the Charles Tillman, Peanut Punch he used to do. Watch how often that's happening and how good teams are at it. Watch how successful it is.

I also want you to watch how often teams are blitzing now, because blitzing is also up 5 to 7%. Since 2018, when they started tracking blitz rate, there's never been a year that's been above like 26%, and now there's an average of 30% blitz rate across the NFL. So teams are starting to get way more aggressive on the back end too. Those are two little league-wide trends to keep an eye out for. It may change your viewing experience.

PENIK: The new kickoff rules have helped too. Now there are more kick returns and way more space to operate in those returns, so teams are like, "All right, we're probably going to make the tackle anyway. We're probably going to have guys rallying to the ball." We may sacrifice four or five additional yards here, but can you just make contact with the guy and try going for the ball? Even if you miss, and we allow four, five, six, seven additional yards, somebody else is going to make the tackle.

Teams would rather have that tradeoff: let's go for the turnover, and if we get it, great — let's put the ball on the ground. If it doesn't work and we allow a couple additional yards, we'll take that tradeoff, because the carrot hanging in front of you is getting the football back and getting your offense back on the field. I just think it's another way defenses can fight back against an offense.

And that's really what the NFL is. It's a cyclical league. Offenses are going to throw changeups when defenses approach something a specific way, and vice versa — when offenses get a leg up, defenses are going to try to throw a curveball and respond to what offenses are doing. So between the blitz stuff and forced fumbles, I think this is a year where we're seeing some defenses start to fight back.

PENIK: Nine or 10. Their schedule gets tougher on the back end. They've got the Jaguars coming up, which is really going to be only the second team they've played with a winning record. The Rams, as of now, are the only team they've played with a winning record — and even the Rams have been below .500 at certain points this year.

So they have the Jags coming up, the Lions, the Browns, and obviously the Cowboys again too. They're playing better teams on the back end of their schedule. But if they get four more wins, that gets them to nine, and there are still some bad teams coming up. They still have the Eagles again in the final week of the season. They've got some teams on the back end of their schedule I think they can beat, so I think — and hope — they're going to get to like nine or 10 wins.

PENIK: Oh, yeah! Very, very bizarre. This has just been a bizarre year. Think about where Giants fans were during the 2024 draft. The Giants were picking near the top of the draft — not number one overall, but like top five. And there was a big debate: do you draft J.J. McCarthy? Obviously Drake Maye wasn't going to be there, Caleb Williams wasn't going to be there, Jayden Daniels wasn't going to be there. The big three were going one, two, three, and none of those teams were willing to trade. The Giants tried to trade up.

So the next quarterback that was really debated was J.J. McCarthy. There were fans that wanted him, and there were fans that didn't want to touch him with a 10-foot pole. I wanted Malik Nabers, because I thought Malik Nabers was going to be a better player than J.J. McCarthy. I was one of those fans on draft night who celebrated that we got Malik Nabers and, at the same time, passed on J.J. McCarthy. And right away that looked like the right decision: McCarthy misses a whole year, then comes back and has a rookie year that's comparable to Josh Rosen. So I'm like, "Oh, well, that take looked great."

And then there are the rumors he could be going to the Giants, and it's like, "Oh no, we're really going to do this. We're really going to go down this rabbit hole." And now what a bizarre world it is that you have J.J. McCarthy throwing to Malik Nabers. All that debate on draft night and that whole draft month — "We can't do this. I don't want us to do this. We can't just force a quarterback." And now the guy we debated is the quarterback for the New York Giants, and he's seemingly come in and kind of saved the season a little bit, and shown a really big arm too, and making the Minnesota Vikings look really, really bad in the process. Just a truly bizarre world we live in. That's how I'd describe this whole J.J. thing so far.

PENIK: You can't just say, "Well, if the Giants win the division, if the Giants win a playoff game, what happens?" You have to consider the experience of how it's done. The context of how that's done is so, so important and so valuable. That's what I'll say. I'm so 1-0-week-to-week with this Giants season that the Dart-versus-J.J.-versus-whoever conversation is one I'm not even willing to have, because I kind of want to enjoy the magic carpet ride that is the 2026 New York Giants.

The best of what came out of Jomboy HQ, the Warehouse, and anywhere else we wandered out to over the last week.