Giants running out of time to bring ‘juice’ to this season

It is all about the juice.

Or lack of it.

Until the Giants get their first one, they can squeeze and squeeze and they will come up with not a drip of anything sweet or satisfying.

“Wins create juice,” linebacker Micah McFadden said Wednesday after practice. “And I think for the rookies in our building and the new guys, we all want to experience that feeling after a win, in the locker room after a win. Ultimately not only for this team but they want it for themselves.”

The Giants through two games have created plenty of angst and regret and their improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 was encouraging in some respects but not where it counts most.

“Of course you know where we are at this point,” running back Devin Singletary told The Post.

Where they are sitting is at 0-2 heading into Sunday’s game against the Browns in Cleveland, a game that feels like the last chance for the Giants to rise up to relevance for quite a while.

“Man, we know we’re close, so you got to go hard, trying to get that first one,” Singletary said. “It will be good to get a taste of that first one and from there you’re rolling.”

The taste is something awful so far.

It almost does not matter that history says if the Giants drop to 0-3 they aren’t making the playoffs. Here’s a little tidbit: Heading into the season, the likelihood of them making the playoffs sat somewhere between gone and forgotten. Their roster is simply not strong enough to be considered worthy of a postseason berth. If all went well, if their young players developed, if they were blessed with health and Daniel Jones played at the top of his level — serviceable NFL starter — flirting with contention and still-in-it down the stretch were the realistic goals for this franchise, considering the assembled talent.

So, that only one team since 2000 — the 2018 Texans — qualified for the playoffs after an 0-3 start should not really be daunting for the Giants. Since 1979, only six teams made the playoffs after an 0-3 start. This weekend is about stopping the bleeding, not finding a cure.

“Even if it’s true, worry about what we got going on in this building,” Singletary said. “You don’t worry about it. That goes to good noise to bad noise, don’t worry about it.”

It is not as if the Browns (1-1) are unbeatable. Deshaun Watson is a stock market quarterback — he’s up, he’s down, he’s … volatile. Their two starting offensive tackles, Jedrick Wills and Jack Conklin, have not played yet this season coming off knee injuries and one, or both, might not make it this week. When a report came down on social media Wednesday that Dawand Jones, the fill-in starting right tackle, has a knee injury and was unable to practice, the first comment on “X” from a Browns fan was this: “Thank God we’re playing the Giants.”

This cannot be the way the Giants are viewed. There is a difference between a team that is struggling or in building mode and a team that is viewed as an easy touch, a patsy. A joke. Going from 0-2 to 0-3 is approaching punch-line status.

“I think everyone realizes our record, everybody understands that,” Jones said. “But no one’s discouraged or no one’s letting that affect our preparation. There’s a great energy and feel in the building still and I think that’s important.

“Yeah, we know the record but it’s a long season and we got a good football team.”

Coach Brian Daboll would not say if the reality of 0-2 was a hot topic with his team this week.

“Yeah, I’d say once we talk in our meetings, we keep it in our meetings,” he said.

If this team is 0-3 it is going to be a hard sell to convince season ticket holders already on the fence not to give in and put their ducats up for sale — and you know there is an endless stream of well-heeled Cowboys fans willing and able to trigger those electronic purchases. Thursday Night Football at MetLife Stadium could devolve into a Dallas Roundup and turn the home team into an interloper in its own building.

Dealing with a team coming off a narrow loss is different than approaching that same team coming off a close loss. The Giants could have played the same game — minus one or two plays, and if they had a kicker — and beaten the Commanders. But they lost 21-18 and they remain winless. Daboll had to go to the “find the first win” chapter in the coaching binder.

“I don’t think there’s a carbon-copy method,” Daboll said. “You look at how you played, you are truthful with how you played and the things you need to be better at. You really want solutions on days after or leading up to the week.

“Consistency is important, too. You don’t want to ride a roller coaster.”

Roller coasters go up and then they go down and then up and down again. The Giants need to find a seat on the ascending portion of the ride.