The pain on John Mara’s face reflected the pain in his Big Blue heart, because the Giants have been his life, will always be his life, a football life during which he has endured the agony of The Fumble, celebrated the euphoria of Bill Parcells and then Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning, and now Rock Bottom, N.J.

He was asked if this — the empty seats, the social media mocking, the 22-59 record the last five years — was his lowest moment, if this was as embarrassed as he’s been as a Giant, and he said: “Honestly I would have to say yes. Yes it is. I kept thinking during the season that we had hit rock bottom and then each week it got a little worse.”

So once again, the fan base is at wit’s end, sick and tired of being sick and tired, as sick and tired of being sick and tired as Mets fans were during too much of the Wilpon Era.

His once-proud franchise has fallen and it can’t get up.

And he is the reason it has fallen.

Another mea culpa, an acknowledgment that he has never been more embarrassed over the plight of his Giants, won’t stop the angry emails that are coming at him again, won’t soothe the savage beast inside the Giants fan. Nor should it.

So there he was on a Zoom call, naked to the world without a general manager or a head coach, the presence of his brother Chris and nephew Tim inside 1925 Giants Drive a source of contention for many who choose to hold them somewhat accountable for the failure of The Mara Way.

You wonder how Mara can walk past the four Lombardi Trophies inside the glass case in the lobby without a yen to go watch “The Way We Were.”

“We’re gonna get it right this time,” Mara vowed.

Now there is a promise certain to fall on deaf ears if there ever was one … unless there are Giants fans who cling desperately to the hope that the law of averages will save him, and them.

No one knows better than the Giants fan — well, maybe the Jets fan, maybe the Lions fan — that there are no guarantees Mara will get it right this time.

More than ever, now that he recognized and acknowledged he finally had to blow it up, the message is a simple one:

Don’t just tell us, John.

Show us, John.

He has talked about losing credibility with the fans so often since Coughlin left that Giants fans view him as Wellington’s Boy Who Cries Wolf.

“I’m gonna have to earn their trust again,” Mara said.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell won’t be playing the part of Pete Rozelle delivering any George Young facsimile, not that there is one, to the Giants.

This will be Mara’s baby.

“I feel very good about the group of candidates for the general manager position that we have scheduled right now,” he said. “I think any one of a number of them would make an excellent general manager.”

But how can he know for sure sight unseen? He interviewed Bills assistant GM Joe Schoen on Wednesday morning, and then Cardinals vice president of scouting Adrian Wilson. Who has he leaned on for the scouting reports? Mara indicated he had done his due diligence on Judge, and here we are again.

“I am confident that we have the resources to make the right choice here,” Mara said.

Giants fans can take solace in the fact Mara is now committed to something other than the All in the Family Way that resulted in Ben McAdoo, Pat Shurmur and Joe Judge and staying too long with Jerry Reese and then Dave Gettleman. All the better if Mara is enlightened by what he hears from his GM candidates and becomes better equipped to see the light that shines outside of 1925 Giants Drive.

We were told that the new GM and the head coach he hires — with the obligatory final say from Mara and co-owner Steve Tisch — will decide the respective fates of Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. Not his brother Chris. Not his nephew Tim.

“I’m always conscious of personnel around the league,” Mara said. “I always keep a list of possible head coaches, possible general managers. I look at the successful teams and what they’re doing. I have a lot of people around the league that I talk to, whose opinions that I respect. At the end of the day, Steve and I put together the list.”

Mara is a good man, but loyalty to a fault has been a fault of his in the football domain. He has long been a believer in stability and continuity, but incompetence everywhere he has turned lately, in the front office and on the playing field, has shaken his penchant for patience. Patience is a virtue, yes … until it isn’t. You can’t blame him for firing McAdoo after two years, for firing Shurmur after two years, for firing Judge after two years, for letting Gettleman retire now (cough, cough), as gut-wrenching as it has been for him. The fan in him can’t force himself to be patient when he’s crying inside.

“In terms of forcing myself, I wanted to do that very badly this year,” Mara said, “but I just didn’t see any end in sight. I just thought we had reached a point where I didn’t see a clear path to making significant progress, and just thought that we needed to hit the reset button.”

The reset button has been hit.

Giants fans will be praying for a Maracle in the Meadowlands.

So just don’t tell us, John.

Show us, John.