Since achieving ultimate glory once again by winning Super Bowl XLVI in February of 2012, the fourth Super Bowl win in franchise history, the New York Giants have been caught in a state of flux.

Last season, New York endured its worst season in a decade and the the team missed out on the playoffs for a third straight year, the first time that had happened since the mid-1990s. That’s evidence enough that it’s hard to keep the Giants down for long and the franchise has been one of the league’s most consistently elite over the last 30 years. In the ultra-competitive NFC East, there’s often a doorway to slide back into the postseason even for a flawed team like New York’s 2015 squad.

But if this team is going to avoid becoming the first Giants club to miss the playoffs for four straight seasons since the franchise’s 17-year playoff drought (1964-1980) at the outset of the Super Bowl era, they’ll have to find positive answers to these five critical questions facing them.

DOWN WITH JPP?

Giants All-Pro defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul and his cohorts on the New York defensive line likely would’ve been on this list even before the events of July 4th. But after Pierre-Paul caused so much harm to his hand in a freak firework accident that he had to have his right index finger amputated, the status of the team’s top pass rusher heads the list of questions facing the 2015 Giants.

When he is right, Pierre-Paul is still one of the league’s premier defensive ends, as evidenced by his 2015 season, which featured 12.5 sacks to rank him eighth in the league. Pro Football Focus actually had JPP with 60 total pressures, ranking 10th among 4-3 defensive ends, including 38 hurries, nine hits and they gave him credit for a full 13 sacks. Overall, PFF rated Pierre-Paul so highly against both the pass and the run that he ended up ranked him seventh in the league among 4-3 defensive ends and was listed as one of the NFL’s biggest Pro Bowl snubs.

That 2014 campaign came in stark contrast to Pierre-Paul’s previous two seasons, when he’d totaled 8.5 sacks in 27 games while dealing with myriad injury issues. However, at still just 25 years old in 2014, it appeared Pierre-Paul had put those seasons behind him and was about to enter his prime at age 26 as one of the league’s pre-eminent pass rushers.

Still the Giants wanted to see more consistency out of JPP, so rather than simply give him the lucrative long-term extension he was seeking this offseason, they decided to stick him with the franchise tag. That ensured him an average of the Top 5 salaries for defensive ends (nearly $15 million in 2015) and it gave New York more time to, at the very least, negotiate that extension. If that didn’t happen, the Giants were content to have another full season to gauge Pierre-Paul’s value.

In hindsight, their move not to extend Pierre-Paul and instead place the franchise tag on him may have been the most prudent move of the NFL offseason. JPP made sure of that on the Fourth of July, when he purchased an entire van full of fireworks and chaos ensued. As a resident of the State of Florida, buying fireworks is Pierre-Paul’s right. But the problem came when JPP was celebrating America’s birthday, apparently neglected to let go one of them go in time and nearly blew his right hand off.

Since then, the All-Pro defensive end has been hospitalized and reportedly underwent multiple surgeries to repair the hand. The most significant of those was on Wednesday, when according to a report from Adam Schefter that stunningly included photos of hospital charts, Pierre-Paul had his right index finger amputated. This report was later confirmed by several other media outlets with a follow-up story detailing the fracture to Pierre-Paul’s thumb, which will contribute to keeping him out of action for a while. The full extent of his injuries remains unknown.

That whoever leaked those photos of his charts to ESPN violated Pierre-Paul’s HIPAA rights was the story du jour for the rest of the week, but that seemed to distract from the fact that a NFL player — and he incredibly wasn’t the only one — had altered his career and his life by using such poor judgement. Sure this was an accident, but it’s about as dumb as they come and it’s hard to feel sympathy for the player when the wounds are so stupidly self-inflicted.

That aside, the question now for both sides is where do they go from here?

If early reports are any indication, it would appear the injury won’t bring a very early end to Pierre-Paul’s potentially great career.  He received enough medical advice to decide that amputating the index finger would expedite his recovery. However, that medical advice didn’t come from anyone associated with the Giants, as they haven’t even seen him since the incident occurred.

The only thing that’s clear right now is that there won’t be a long-term deal coming this year. The Giants pulled their latest extension offer after learning of the incident, and the Wednesday, July 15th deadline to sign franchised players to long-term deals is likely to pass without any further discussions.

However the franchise tag still looms large. The nearly $15 million Pierre-Paul is owed via that tag is a lot to pay a damaged player. The Giants could pull the offer, but that would make JPP a free agent, and that’s not something New York is interested in doing at the moment. At the same time, Pierre-Paul isn’t interested in signing the franchise tender right now either, as doing so would require him to pass a physical that he likely wouldn’t at the moment. That would give the Giants control of his status, leading them to place him on the non-football injury list and perhaps allowing them to forego paying him his salary until he is healthy. So the two sides are in a standoff, one that is so tense that even though the Giants sent team officials to visit Pierre-Paul this week, they were turned away and the team still doesn’t have the full story. In fact, they supposedly only learned of the amputation from media reports after the fact.

How this thing plays out is likely to have a huge impact on the upcoming season for the Giants. New York has some solid other pieces up front highlighted by the emergence of defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins as a difference maker last season. Recently drafted defensive end Owamagbe Odighizuwa, a third round pick who could be one of the steals of the draft, and veteran Robert Ayers, who is entering his second season with the team, could combine to fill JPP’s spot at least temporarily. But there’s no doubting the Giants are significantly worse defensively without Jason Pierre-Paul and his Independence Day mishap could have dire consequences for his team.

HOW GOOD CAN OBJ BE?

Despite their 6-10 finish to the 2014 campaign, there were plenty of reasons for the Giants to be optimistic about the future of the franchise at the end of last season. Topping that list was the emergence of rookie wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., who burst onto the scene in 2014 and claimed NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors despite playing in just 12 games.

After struggling through leg injuries that hampered him in training camp, his slow progress cost him the first month of the season. But Beckham finally made his NFL debut in October and it didn’t take him long to make an impact. In his third NFL game, he tallied two touchdowns in a loss to Dallas, then the next week he totaled eight catches for 156 yards against Indianapolis. It was the first of seven 100-plus yard games for Beckham in the final nine games of the season, including at least eight catches and 130 yards in each of New York’s final four games of 2014. Despite a slow start, he finished the 2014 campaign with 91 catches for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Even without the caveat that he was doing it all as a rookie, Beckham’s stats were gaudy and his play was jaw dropping — highlighted by one of the most phenomenal catches in NFL history in a Week 12 loss to the Cowboys. Based on that freshman campaign alone, his peers ranked Beckham No. 32 on the list of the NFL’s Top 100 players entering 2015, indicating that they believe the best is yet to come. It’s hard to believe that won’t be the case, as Beckham is still just 22 years old and doesn’t even have a year of full training camp under his belt. It stands to reason that some untapped potential remains.

But after a rookie season like that, what can possibly be expected as an encore?

Normally, you would anticipate that rival teams would spend much of their offseason game planning and finding ways to stop a player that had such a significant impact. But there’s one ace that the Giants have up their sleeve to counter that, and that’s the return of Victor Cruz. The Pro Bowl receiver missed more than half the 2014 season with a knee injury, which he suffered just as Beckham was starting to breakout, but is expected back to start the new season. It’s still likely that teams will put an emphasis toward slowing down Beckham in their planning, but because they also have to account for Cruz, they can’t send too much attention the way of the second-year standout.

The chemistry the young receiver has already built with veteran quarterback Eli Manning and the return of Cruz both bode very well for Beckham, who is also doing some work of his own to be even better in year two. Still, it’s probably unwise to try to project OBJ’s 12-game stats over a 16-game season and have expectations of a 120-catch, 1700-yard, 16 touchdown 2015 season. After all, while Cruz’s return will help Beckham continue to get opportunities without double coverage, he’s also likely to split some of the production with the veteran receiver.

That said, barring something unforeseen, it’s hard to see Beckham taking much of a step back as a sophomore either. He’s too talented and the team has too much committed to his development for that to happen. So if Odell can simply come close to matching those 2014 numbers in 2015, the Giants should be happy and it would certianly pave the way for a bright future in New York.

CAN COLLINS PROVIDE SAFETY IN THE SECONDARY?

Beckham was the standout of a strong Giants 2014 draft class and New York is hoping to get a similar impact from their 2015 class. But it’s a second round rookie who could make or break things for the Giants this time around.

New York is a franchise known for its patience in the draft, but at the start of the second day of the 2015 draft, the Giants made a rare aggressive move that could pay huge dividends in the short and long term for the franchise. After watching arguably the best safety in the class, Landon Collins, go unpicked in the first round, New York seized opportunity and moved up to the top spot on Day 2, where they selected the Alabama product No. 33 overall.

The Giants had safety listed as a position of need entering the offseason, and they tried and failed to sign Devin McCourty away from the New England Patriots. They then watched their best incumbent safety, Antrel Rolle, depart for Chicago. Those two whiffs left New York in dire straits at the position come draft time. But their position in the Top 10 of the first round didn’t lend itself to addressing that need. However, as the first round wound to a close, and the top two safeties in the draft — Collins and Arizona State’s Damarious Randall —  continued to slide, the Giants started to salivate.

Randall was eventually scooped up by the Packers at No. 30. But at the end of the first round, Collins was still on the board. In the ensuing 20 hours until round 2 began, the Giants worked diligently to move up and get in position to snatch Collins. Early Friday evening, they finally worked out a deal with Tennessee to move up eight spots, sending their second rounder (No. 40 overall), a fourth rounder and a seventh rounder to the Titans and obtained the first pick in the second round, which they used to take Collins.

It was a small price to pay to secure such a crucial piece for the backend of their defense, but the question that looms over Collins, and the secondary at large in 2015 is: Can the talented safety  have an immediate impact on the defense like Beckham did the offense in 2014?

Collins certainly has the pedigree to make one believe he can be an instant difference maker. He finished the 2014 campaign at Alabama with 103 tackles, seven passes defensed, a forced fumble and three interceptions, big numbers for a strong safety. He slides right in as New York’s best safety from Day 1, and his presence should serve to make the Giants much better in the short and long terms. For now, his talent is enough that it will help New York tighten up on some of the league’s best receivers on the backend. And in the long term, Collins has star potential that could eventually see him emerge as one of the league’s premier safeties.

In the immediate future, he’ll serve as a safety valve for an already dynamic Giants secondary led by their cornerback tandem of Prince Amukamara and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. Despite the play of those two, who both graded out positively last season according to PFF, the New York pass coverage rated negatively overall thanks to their struggles at safety. Collins should help solve some of those problems. But the Giants will also need someone to step up at free safety and complement him, or their flaws will be exposed. If they can get even league average production from incumbent Cooper Taylor, or even a fellow rookie Mykkele Thompson, New York’s secondary should be in solid shape.

WHAT BECOMES OF MANNING UNDER MCADOO?

Long a source of consistency within the Giants franchise, Eli Manning was once widely recognized as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks thanks to his play during New York’s two successful title runs in the last eight years. But recently, Manning has transformed into one of the most enigmatic players in the league, due in large part to the woeful inconsistency of his performance.

Over the last several seasons, Eli’s highs have been championship caliber and his lows have been bottom-of-the barrel-bad, with little in between. His 2013 campaign was “turn away in horror” awful (57.5 % completion, 18 touchdowns, 27 interceptions) and a big reason why the Giants finished 7-9 that season.

But Manning can’t be blamed for last season’s woes in New York. Despite working within a different offensive system during the first year under new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo, Eli bounced back in a big way, literally cutting his interception total in half while completing better than 63 percent of his passes for 4,400 yards and 30 touchdowns in 2014. And he did most of it without the help of his security blanket, Victor Cruz, who missed the final 10 games of the season with a knee injury.

The question is, what Eli will we see in 2015: the 2013 version or the 2014 version?

Fortunately for the Giants, there’s plenty of reason to believe it will be the latter and perhaps the overall outcome will be even better than that. As mentioned above, New York was in the first season with a new offense in 2014 and there were plenty of growing pains for Manning and his teammates early in that first year.

Panic started to set in because of how bad Manning looked in the offense during the preseason, and the results of the first two weeks of the season — back-to-back multiple interception games for Eli in Giants losses — didn’t help. Things ticked up briefly for a few weeks thereafter, and for a little while Manning and the Giants started to roll. During a three-game winning streak from weeks 3-5, Manning completed 70 percent of his passes and threw eight touchdowns against just one interception.

The Cruz injury in Week 6, during a shutout loss to the rival Eagles, was a significant setback for the offense, but while the Giants went on to lose eight of their final 11 games from there, it was far from the fault of the quarterback. Thanks to the emergence of Beckham, Manning didn’t really miss a beat.

Sure there were some clunkers in there, lowlighted by one of the worst performances of the quarterback’s career against the 49ers in Week 11. He threw five interceptions in that contest and completed less than 50 percent of his passes in a 16-10 loss the Giants could have won if they had even a mediocre performance from Manning. But awful performances like that one were rare for Manning in 2014 and the good far outweighed the bad, particularly down the stretch. Though New York was well out of the hunt by then, Eli was again at his best in December, completing 63 percent of his passes for 1,330 yards and eight touchdowns against just two interceptions while leading the Giants to a 3-1 finish.

Now with a full year under McAdoo, Cruz on the mend and Beckham having emerged, the pieces are in place for a tremendous season from Manning. If he can string together a second consecutive strong campaign, at the very least he can shake the enigmatic label and lock up one last lucrative long term contract with the Giants. If all breaks right for the G-Men, perhaps he could even lead New York back to the postseason, where he tends to shine the brightest.

CAN THE BLOCKING AND BACKS BALANCE THE OFFENSE?

Of course, Manning will need some help to have New York meet their playoff expectations and a significant amount of that assistance will have to come from the guys in front of him on the offensive line and whoever is standing behind or beside him at running back.

While Manning’s play itself has been inconsistent in the last few years, he remains the most consistently durable quarterback in the league, with a standing streak of 167 consecutive regular season games started. However, the shoddy play of the offensive line in front of him has made it increasingly more remarkable that the streak has remained intact, and over the last two seasons, it’s seemed like a matter of when not if it’s going to be broken. Manning took 28 sacks last season, one year after taking a career-high 39 and he was again throwing under intense pressure for much of last season.

Manning enters the 2015 campaign at 34 years old and can’t be expected to bounce back from those hits like he always has, so it’s vital for the Giants to give him some room to work as he ages. But do they have the skill on the offensive line to do that, and can they get the running game going again?

Their efforts to do both those things in 2015 have already taken a significant hit with the loss of left tackle Will Beatty, who will miss the entire season after suffering a torn pectoral muscle during OTAs. The loss of Beatty offsets the addition of first round draft choice Ereck Flowers, who was set to team with Beatty as bookends on a stronger Giants offensive line. That would have allowed the team to seamlessly transition Justin Pugh inside to guard.

It seems despite the setback with the loss of Beatty, New York is still planning to move Pugh inside after the second-year pro graded out in the bottom half of the league’s tackles last season according to PFF. So while Flowers takes Beatty’s place on the left side of the line, newcomer Marshall Newhouse, who started five games with Bengals last year, leads the list of candidates to start at right tackle. However Newhouse graded out even more poorly at the position than Pugh last year, especially in pass blocking, where Pugh actually received a positive rating, so how that works out remains to be seen.

The Giants should be stronger inside next year, especially if guard Geoff Schwartz can return to health. Injuries torpedoed Schwartz’s 2015 season, which began with a toe injury that cost him 10 games. The guard then suffered an ankle injury in Week 13 and missed the rest of the year. The current plan for New York has Schwartz set to start at right guard with Pugh at the left guard spot. In between them will be 2014 second rounder Weston Richburg, who moves to the center spot from left guard, replacing the line’s weakest link last year, J.D. Walton. Walton ranked 38th among 41 qualified centers in PFF rating last season, so that is a case of addition by subtraction.

The changes to the interior of the line should help the running game, which will in-turn help Manning. Last year the Giants collectively ran for just 1,603 yards, ranking 23rd in the NFL. They’ll need a much better performance in that area if they’re going to keep Manning upright and compete for a postseason spot.

Getting a full season out of Rashad Jennings would aid that endeavor immensely. Jennings showed flashes of brilliance last season and it was no coincidence that the offense started to click when he went off for 176 yards against Houston in Week 3. But he was plagued by injuries from there and played sparingly down the stretch. Jennings remains New York’s best bet to shoulder the load, but this is a team that should be looking to split the carries amongst a committee. Fourth round pick Andre Williams ended up leading the team in rushing last season and has great potential and bringing in Shane Vereen from New England adds another dimension to the Giants offense. Vereen is a change of pace back and receiving threat out of the backfield, something the team has lacked in recent years.

If the Giants can get better blocking from their offensive line and better production from their running game, it can set the wheels in motion for a great season. It will make Manning and the passing game more dynamic as a result, and make the defense better by minimizing their time on the field. It’s a plan the division rival Dallas Cowboys used to rise from a string of mediocre seasons, like New York has recently endured, to the top of the division in 2014, and it would be in the best interest of the Giants to do what they can to follow that blueprint.