Giants-Eagles ‘things I think’: Maybe Giants’ fans were burning the wrong jerseys

Giants embarrass themselves in almost every imaginable way

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The 2024 season just keeps getting more and more miserable for the New York Giants.

They are 2-5 and the season appears to be lost. They are 0-4 at home, and continue to embarrass themselves in front of the increasingly less faithful MetLife Stadium crowd.

Sunday, honestly, was as embarrassing as you could possibly imagine for the Giants as a franchise.

Saquon Barkley ran wild. The former Giants star had 176 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries. He had runs of 55, 41, and 38 yards. The only reason he did not surpass his career high of 189 yards rushing, set with the Giants in 2022 vs. Washington, is that he did not touch the ball in the fourth quarter.

Fans burned Barkley’s jersey in the parking lot before the game. He then burned the Giants.

After saying on ‘Hard Knocks’ that he would have a hard time sleeping if Barkley signed with the Philadelphia Eagles, it is hard to believe Sunday will be a comfortable night for Giants co-owner John Mara.

The Giants?

An anemic 119 yards of total offense, their worst offensive game this century. They had 107 yards against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1 of the 1999 season — 25 years ago.

In their four home losses, the Giants have managed 31 points — 7.75 per game. They have one touchdown and eight field goals. They don’t have a home touchdown pass.

“Just not a good day, all the way around,” head coach Brian Daboll said.

No, it wasn’t.

By itself, Sunday could be passed off as “just not a good day.”

The accumulation of awful losses at home, especially awful losses that can be mostly laid at the feet of an inept offense that is supposed to be Daboll’s specialty, will inevitably lead to speculation about both Daniel Jones’ future at quarterback and Daboll’s future as head coach for the Giants.

We know that the clock is ticking on Jones. There are 10 games left in the season. That means probably 10 games left in his time with the Giants, and the way things are going fewer games than that before he is no longer the starter.

I am not and will not advocate for Daboll to be replaced as head coach, at least not until I sense mutiny in the team’s locker room. There is no question, though, that Daboll calling plays has not been the cure-all for the offense that some hoped it would be.

The Giants entered the game 29th in the league in points scored at 16.0 per game. Their worst offensive performance of the century — amazing considering some of the Mike Glennon and Jake Fromm efforts we saw a few years back — won’t help.

The Giants have 99 points in seven games, 14.1 per game.

Daboll knows what the issues are. To this point, though, he also clearly doesn’t have the answers.

“The two areas that we continue to work on, actually three, over and over again, are third-down, red zone and explosive plays. Another game where, I don’t know what our longest play was, it couldn’t have been too long, 14 yards. I don’t know what it was. But, it’s hard to generate points when your longest play is 14 yards or your longest play last week was 15 yards,” Daboll said. “So, you can do that one of two ways: catch and run or push the ball down the field and give our guys some chances or go up and make some plays. We’re continuing to work on that. Those are two areas that we put a lot of time and effort in and we’re not getting the results equal to the work and the effort that we’re putting into it.”

Daboll doesn’t want to admit — honestly, can’t admit out loud — that Jones is part of the problem. That he’s navigating around the weaknesses in Jones’ game that have been documented and argued about for five-plus seasons now. He can’t say out loud what everyone knows. That while Jones is a fierce competitor, a guy who can make plays as a runner, a quarterback who is fine the things around him are fine, that Jones does not have the ability to consistently lift his team or, to use a basketball term, play above the rim when things are not going well around him.

Daboll simply said “no” when asked Sunday if having Jones as the quarterback limits the offense.

Reality is, though, the Giants are running in place with Jones as the quarterback.

Which begs this question. Why does Daboll continue to try to run the offense through Jones’ right arm, and probably far too often, the quarterback’s legs? Especially when it was clear from the first possession of the game that the Adnrew Thomas-less offensive line could not protect the quarterback?

Out of the Giants’ first 21 play calls — including ones negated by penalty — Daboll called 17 pass plays. Tyrone Tracy, coming off two good games (one of them excellent), carried twice in the first half for three yards. Devin Singletary carried once for a yard.

That’s just not good enough when your quarterback is getting killed, and when there is years worth of evidence that he can’t do what you are asking him to do. Which is win all by himself.

“I thought we had some space in there. I thought there was some opportunities,” Daboll said. “We just, for whatever the reason may be, we just didn’t get it done.”

Daboll’s play-calling didn’t help.

The woeful, 2023-esque, play by the offensive line also didn’t help.

The decision to use Josh Ezeudu as the backup left tackle worked out on Sunday the way we probably should have expected it to. Not well. It didn’t work last year. Even though Ezeudu was better prepared this year after getting practice reps at tackle since the beginning of OTAs, it clearly isn’t going to work this year.

Ezeudu gave up sacks on the Giants’ second and third possessions, both on third and manageable situations that forced punts.

Ezeudu wasn’t the only one. Center John Michael Schmitz appeared to get beaten for two of the eight sacks the Giants surrendered. In reality, the pass blocking was a mess across the board. Which is disturbing, because four-fifths of the line remains intact.

Maybe the Giants can replace Ezeudu with newly-signed Chris Hubbard. Maybe they can slide Jermaine Eluemunor to left tackle and give Evan Neal a chance at right tackle. There are no options guaranteed to help. That’s the situation the Giants have put themselves in.

“I’d like to go back and look at it and really evaluate it. We tried to do some different things that we haven’t done,” Daboll said. “Mainly, we jammed a fair amount, particularly in those throwing situations, and tried to give some presence to the edge on the left side. But, to sit up here and give you an evaluation of it all right now, that would be unfair.”

The run defense wasn’t good enough. Barkley embarrassed them. Truthfully, any running back would have. Barkley had runs of 55, 41 and 38 yards through truck-sized holes in the defensive front.

“Just some misfits,” said linebacker Bobby Okereke. “They had some two-back misdirection there. He’s a good back. He found holes and made his pick.”

“All 11 had to do our jobs and we knew that coming into the game,” Dexter Lawrence. “We got out of the gap sometimes, and that’s when he broke for those big runs.”

Quarterback play. Play-calling. Offensive line play. Poor run defense. All problems.

I was also bugged by the lack of effort by Tae Banks on a third-and-7 scramble for 16 yards by Jalen Hurts. Yes, the score was 28-3, but, c’mon!

Banks explained the play this way:

“I really just thought he was gonna slide or whatever, but it was a bad play by me. Bad effort play by me. I think I could have made it.

“I play this game because I love this shit. Sometimes you get frustrated out there when shit’s not going your way.

“That’s me just letting the emotions get the best of me.”

Still, not good enough. Not professional from a guy the Giants are counting to be a big part of their future.

Something else that, in my view, wasn’t professional. Tomon Fox celebrating a sack with less than two minutes to go with his team down by 25 points. Especially after Fox had missed a sack that led to that 16-yard run by Hurts we already talked about, then committed an awful 15-yard roughing the punter penalty that gave him a chance to get his sack.

Nothing about Sunday was a good look for the Giants. Can it get better from here? I’m honestly not sure.