Ben McAdoo believes his former team will win the NFC East.
The former Giants head coach, who was fired along with GM Jerry Reese midway through the 2017 season, told the New York Post's Paul Schwartz he thinks the Giants improved this past offseason and thinks they can overtake the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the division.
"I think Philly, how much success has Philly had?" McAdoo said. "I think they're gonna have a hard time handling success. Dallas, I like their offensive line, but how long have we been saying that? Their defense, they got a bunch of young guys playing DB, Sean Lee is banged up a lot, and their D-line, they got a bunch of guys getting in trouble all the time. And Washington is Washington, right?"
Among their offseason moves, the Giants drafted running back Saquon Barkley No. 2 overall, signed Nate Solder and Patrick Omameh to bolster their offensive line after they lost Justin Pugh, added B.W. Webb to improve their secondary and traded for linebacker Alec Ogletree.
"I think they've made a lot of the moves I wanted to make," McAdoo said.
McAdoo went 13-15 with one postseason loss in one and a half seasons since replacing Tom Coughlin at the helm.
After he and the Giants went 11-5 in 2016, the Giants lost 10 of their first 12 games last season, which was mired by injuries, including to three of their starting wide receivers in Week 5. McAdoo ultimately lost control of the locker room and was fired in December.
Dave Gettleman replaced Reese as GM and former Vikings offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur replaced McAdoo, and McAdoo thought they made a lot of smart moves, including trading Jason Pierre-Paul to the Buccaneers.
"I guess you kind of just flipped JPP for Solder," McAdoo said, referring to their salary cap numbers, "and I think that's a good move, really."
Of course, the Giants weren't the only team to make moves. The Eagles, coming off a Super Bowl run that started with Carson Wentz and ended with Nick Foles, acquired Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, Panthers cornerback Daryl Worley, Lions defensive tackle Haloti Ngata and Ravens wide receiver Mike Wallace.
The Cowboys cut wide receiver Dez Bryant and lost Jason Witten to retirement, but added wide receiver Allen Hurns and defensive end Kony Ealy. Washington replaced Kirk Cousins with Alex Smith and signed linebacker Vontae Diggs, cornerback Orlando Scandrick and wide receiver Paul Richardson.
The last time the Giants went from the bottom of the division in one season to the playoffs in the next was in 1996-97, when they turned a 6-10 team into a 10-5-1 team that lost in the wild-card game. After they finished 3-12-1 in 1983, they rebounded in 1984 by finishing 9-7 and losing in the divisional round.