NEW YORK — Giants tight end Isaiah Likely said this week that “hearing how Giants training camp was in the past was kind of mind-boggling to me.”

All Likely knew prior to signing in New York this spring were John Harbaugh’s high annual expectations for the Baltimore Ravens.

“If I wake up, I’m putting on cleats,” Likely said, describing how he was conditioned to work in Charm City.

Quickly, Likely said this Giants team “embraced” the summer grind that was new but necessary for this franchise.

“I feel like now everybody’s on the same mantra: If we’re in the building, it’s all ball,” he said.

That’s good news for Harbaugh’s efforts to rebuild the Giants’ culture and prepare the players’ bodies for the NFL season. But it may be even better news for what matters most:

Beating the Dallas Cowboys.

In one week, the Giants’ Sunday Night Football Week 1 opener at MetLife Stadium is an opportunity for Harbaugh to kick the door down on the NFC East with a bang.

Harbaugh has been thinking about it for a while. He did not have to turn the page to Cowboys preparation after the Giants’ preseason concluded. He was already there.

“Really, honestly, I guess the greatest way I could answer that is that we’ve been thinking about Dallas,” he said. “I mean, it doesn’t all of a sudden start now. We’ve been game planning for Dallas and the Rams and the Titans and the Cardinals. Those first four games you kind of look at in terms of your preparation, even during training camp.”

This is refreshing, because the Giants’ “mind-boggling” country club approach to training camp the previous four years was directly responsible for no-show performances early in the majority of those seasons.

The Giants have not won a season opener since 2022. They have not won at home in Week 1 since 2010 against the Carolina Panthers. They’re 0-6 at home in Week 1 since.

They have lost their last three season openers overall by a combined score of 89-12 to the Cowboys, Minnesota Vikings and Washington Commanders, respectively. And they were embarrassed, 40-0, the last time they hosted the Cowboys in Week 1 on Sunday Night Football in 2023.

It does not appear Harbaugh has spoken to the team about the Giants’ futility against the Cowboys, in particular. They are 1-9 in their last 10 meetings with the Cowboys. They’re 2-16 against Dallas in their last 18 clashes. And they’re 3-14 in the 17 games Dak Prescott has started at quarterback for Dallas.

Corner Greg Newsome II, who signed with the Giants this spring, seemed genuinely unaware how badly the Giants have struggled in this matchup.

“Not really,” Newsome said this week. “Obviously it’s a division game. I feel like all division games are super important. Going against the Cowboys is super important. So I’m super excited for the challenge.”

Giants ownership believes Harbaugh is the ingredient they were missing.

Harbaugh might have lost back-to-back Week 1 games in 2024 and 2025 at the end of his time in Baltimore, but they were a 27-20 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs and a controversial 41-40 loss to the Buffalo Bills, respectively.

Overall, Harbaugh posted an impressive 12-6 record in Week 1 games in 18 seasons with the Ravens, including a 5-0 record in season openers to start his tenure there from 2008-12, culminating in a 2012 Super Bowl championship.

And he has coached the Giants with urgency this summer in chasing a hot start to the fall.

Harbaugh said after the first practice of camp on July 29 in West Virginia that he was not just putting his team through training camp to see who would make the team or get cut.

He was “chasing execution” in preparation for the real games in September.

“We’re at a stage now, we’re getting ready for the games,” Harbaugh said then. “I mean, that’s what practice is for. We’re not here to practice. It’s not a training camp exercise. We’re here to prepare for the games that we’re going to play.”

Newsome said this week he has never seen a training camp like this.

“No,” he said. “This is probably one of the tougher camps I’ve been a part of, and I think it’s been great honestly, competing day in and day out, building that callous. I think it’s definitely gonna help us in the long run.”

And Harbaugh was talking a big game after seeing his team practice hard right up to the Labor Day weekend break.

“We’re ready to go,” he said Wednesday. “We’re ready to go fight some football battles.”

The Giants (44-104-1, .295) are tied with the Jets (44-105, .295) for the worst regular-season win percentage in the NFL since the start of the 2017 season.

A big reason why is how poorly they have started a lot of those seasons, how much the misguided organization enabled poor leadership to instill bad, “mind-boggling” habits in the team.

Harbaugh is here to show them a different way.

The Giants have practiced differently. They are speaking confidently. Now it’s time to see if makes them play better.

Because the only true way to fully validate Harbaugh’s new approach is for his methods to yield results.

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