‘Things I think’: Worst possible way for Giants to start the season

The 2024 season could not have started in uglier fashion for the Giants — and we aren’t talking about Century Red uniforms

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Sunday was a gorgeous day in New Jersey. The weather was great. Optimistic New York Giants fans were wearing their jerseys, tailgating, and preparing to celebrate the greatest players in franchise history as the team began its 100th season of competition in the NFL.

Then, the current iteration of the New York Football Giants — wearing never-before-seen Century Red uniforms to “honor” the history of the franchise — played football.

And everything fell apart. Quickly.

Fans began booing three plays into the game as the Giants took the opening kickoff, lost 9 yards on three plays, and punted.

When the Vikings took a 21-3 lead after the first drive of the third quarter, some fans began shuffling for the exits. When it got to be 28-6, that turned into a mass exodus. And, yes, I know the caption in the video says fourth quarter.

Giants star defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence did not take kindly to the booing.

First, he tried to deflect, asking “can you get another question, please?”

When reporters persisted, Lawrence said this:

“I don’t respect it, honestly. I get it, they want to see their team win. It’s a rough patch. It is what it is.”

Co-owner John Mara, on a day when the franchise was celebrating its 100th season of competition and honoring many of the best players to ever wear a Giants uniform, could not have liked what he saw. Or the reaction from unhappy fans who were looking/hoping/praying for something to feel good about on Sunday. Something they did not get.

A year after the Giants got off to an ugly 2-8 start and had a terrible season interrupted only briefly by the unlikely, short-lived heroics of then-rookie undrafted free agent quarterback Tommy DeVito, the last thing the Giants could afford was an ugly beginning to the 2024 season.

They prepared differently all spring and summer, turning up the competition and the intensity as they seemed to understand the urgency of getting off to a better start. Yet, at least on Sunday, it didn’t matter.

An ugly beginning is what the Giants got.

This was a disaster no matter how you slice it. It was an awful performance from a team that has had far too many of those through multiple coaching staffs and front offices over the last 10 years or so.

None of the things the Giants banked on helping them this season came to fruition, and some of the things we thought would be concerns turned out to be exactly that.

• The revamped offensive line was, in the words of Andrew Thomas, “piss poor.” Quarterback Daniel Jones was sacked five times and hit a dozen more. The complex Minnesota defense caused breakdowns that led to free runners.
• The pass rush, aside from an early sack by Lawrence, was non-existent. The ballyhooed edge duo of Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux were invisible, except when Thibodeaux was called for a 15-yard face mask penalty on a third-and-16 in the third quarter. That extended a Minnesota drive that ended with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Nailor, and a 21-3 Vikings lead.
• The playmakers the Giants have staked so much on had the dropsies. By my count, there were five dropped passes.
• The secondary was no match for the Vikings, with Justin Jefferson roasting Tae Banks for a 44-yard catch and for a 3-yard touchdown. Adoree’ Jackson had a 36-yard defensive pass interference on a third-and-8 that set up Minnesota’s first touchdown.
• The downfield shots the Giants promised, and worked on so much during the spring and summer, were non-existent. Daboll said the Vikings “played a bunch of soft shell, split safety stuff.” Obviously, that was designed to take away the big play. Still, the Giants needed to but couldn’t find shots to take. Daboll also somehow thought it was a good idea to keep calling designed runs for a quarterback playing his first regular season game since surgery for a torn ACL, including on back-to-back plays that failed, forcing a punt.
• The Giants committed nine penalties, two of which kept Minnesota drives that resulted in touchdowns alive. Safety Jason Pinnock said those types of penalties “suck the life out of you.”
• Topping it all off, Jones was bad. Indecisive. Off-target too often. Running himself into trouble as often as he ran himself out of it. GM Joe Schoen saying on ‘Hard Knocks’ that “this is the year for Daniel” did not mean they expect him to turn into an All-Pro quarterback. They were, and are, hoping the changes to the offensive line and additions to the receiving corps help bring out the 2022 version of Jones. That is what they will need to be at least respectable. That is not what the Giants got on Sunday.

Jones knows he did not play well. He heard the boos, and he knows many Giants fans are looking forward to the day someone else is quarterbacking the team. He certainly hoped to not be answering questions about that after Week 1, but here we are.

“I’m focused on doing my job and playing as well as I can,” he said. “So I’ve got to play better, I know that. And I’m focused on doing that.”

The Giants, from Daboll down through every player on the roster who had a camera or a microphone stuck in front of his face after the game, tried to downplay the impact the loss. They all gave us some version of the “it’s only Week 1, it’s one loss, there are 16 games to play, we’ll look at the film and clean things up and do better next week” spiel.

“I want to see us play as good as we can play, whatever that may be. We didn’t do that today,” Daboll said. “I thought we prepared well. I thought they gave good effort. I thought the defense played hard. We gave up a pick-six down there. But, there’s a lot of things to clean up.”

Here are some examples from the players.

Daniel Jones:

“It’s certainly frustrating and disappointing to get the result today that we did. I think for us, we’ve got to understand this is the first week and there’s a lot of football to play, so we’ve got to clean it up. We’ve got to make some improvements fast and a lot of football to play, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Andrew Thomas:

“Definitely frustrating. Put a lot of work into it, but it’s Week 1, the season’s not over today. We just have to do a better job of adjusting mid-game when we see a different look or they present something different.”

Malik Nabers:

“You’re going to lose games. It’s how you bounce back. First game of the season doesn’t really determine your season. We’ve just gotta keep on going as a team.”

Bobby Okereke:

“You almost have to block out the media. They’ll tell you you’re the worst team in the world or the best team in the world after one week, but it’s a long season, 17-week season.”

The Giants have a schedule where the two most winnable games of the first seven appeared to be the one in which they just got embarrassed and next week’s game in Landover, Md. against the Washington Commanders.

After that, games against the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks, Cincinnati Bengals and Philadelphia Eagles — all obvious playoff contenders — loom.

The Giants have now thrown away 50% of their opportunity to get the season off to a start that could lead to a respectable year.

I have, admittedly, been optimistic about the work the Giants have done in trying to finally get the franchise pointed in a consistently positive direction rather than one where they accidentally make the playoffs every few seasons.

I have come down on the side of saying that I don’t believe Schoen and Daboll enter — or entered — the season on what is commonly referred to as “the hot seat.” I have said many times, and still believe, that the only thing that could change that is a season that goes completely off the rails and leaves ownership no choice but to start again.

Unfortunately, a season-opening performance like the one the Giants had Sunday afternoon, a re-run of what way too much of the 2023 season looked like, opens the door to that type of season-opening stretch taking place.

Sunday could have, maybe should have considering what the organization was celebrating, turned into a feel-good, confidence-building day for the Giants.

Instead, it led to questions about whether or not another miserable season awaits.

Daboll, like Lawrence, was fielding questions about the negativity surrounding the team.

“Our job is to go out there and perform, and we didn’t do that,” he said.

He is already fielding questions about why he did not pull his starting quarterback, and whether or not there will be a quarterback change.

“That’s not in my mind,” he said.

If things don’t improve the questions Daboll gets asked about replacing someone won’t be about the quarterback.