ARLINGTON, Texas — Has Darius Slayton ever gone into a game thinking his team had no real chance to win?
“Nah, not in the NFL,’’ he said.
The wide receiver, in his fifth season with the Giants, has been through some grim times with the team that selected him in the 2019 draft.
There has been one season with a winning record — last year’s playoff team.
There have been two seasons with just four wins, and with a 2-7 record after nine games this season, Slayton and the Giants are not exactly destined for big things up ahead.
“Dire’’ is a good word to describe the state of the Giants.
They are down to their third quarterback after injuries to Daniel Jones (out for the season with a torn ACL) and Tyrod Taylor (out at least three more games with a rib cage injury), meaning Tommy DeVito, an undrafted product of New Jersey, makes his first NFL start Sunday against the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.
The Giants are 17.5-point underdogs — the highest spread in the NFL this season — and there is legitimate concern that something along the lines of a repeat of the 40-0 shellacking the Cowboys put on them in the opener is possible.
So, Mr. Slayton, are you still saying there’s a chance?
“Both teams got to show up and play, and there’s so much that can happen in football,’’ Slayton told The Post. “In the NFL, it’s never like Alabama vs. Sam Houston State. A lot of people think some NFL games are like that. They’re not. If we go out there and execute and play the way like we are capable of playing, we can win the game.’’
Reminded that the 40-point loss Sept. 10 was in line with one of those college football mismatches — where the smaller-program team gets paid to travel to the favored, big-program team to habitually get clobbered — Slayton said, “The margin was that, for sure. But stuff happens.’’
Stuff, most of it quite bad, has happened to the Giants in what has devolved into a lost season.
There was a fleeting sense of renewal last week heading to Las Vegas, as Jones came back after missing three games with a neck injury and left tackle Andrew Thomas returned after missing the past seven games.
Jones’ right knee buckled on the final play of the first quarter, and the Giants were thrashed 30-6 by the Raiders, a team that a few days earlier fired its general manager, head coach and offensive coordinator, and inserted an unheralded rookie in at quarterback.
That was bad.
This could be worse.
The Cowboys are licking their wounds, coming off a 28-23 loss in Philadelphia in an NFC East showdown.
These are lean times for the Giants, who now turn to DeVito because he is next in line.
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DeVito made his NFL debut when Taylor went down in the second quarter against the Jets, assigned to hand the ball to Saquon Barkley in the second half, in the rain, to protect a 10-7 lead after DeVito ran for a touchdown early in the third quarter.
The Giants lost, 13-10, in overtime.
The next week, DeVito was called off the sideline when Jones went down.
Two of his first five passes were intercepted.
DeVito settled down in the second half, completing 14 of 17 passes for 164 yards and one touchdown.
“In the second half, everything kind of just calmed down,’’ DeVito said. “We got into how we were supposed to be playing, but it was a little bit too late.’’
DeVito grew up 20 minutes from MetLife Stadium and won a Jersey state championship at Don Bosco before playing in college at Syracuse and finishing up at Illinois.
This is all new for him, but he is a 25-year old — only one year younger than Jones — and comports himself like, well, like a quarterback, which is to say he does not shy away from the spotlight.
“He approaches the position with confidence, and obviously when you’re playing quarterback, you want to have that confidence, you want to have that demeanor when you walk into the huddle,’’ offensive coordinator Mike Kafka said. “I think he has that. It’s something that looks like he’s had his whole life. He brings an energy with him that kind of permeates throughout the room.’’
All that energy could get flattened when the fearsome Cowboys rush (seven sacks of Jones in the opener) closes in.