Entering Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints, there was an air of optimism around the New York Giants. A feeling that maybe, just maybe, things were starting to FINALLY turn toward brighter days.
The Giants defeated the previously unbeaten Los Angeles Chargers in Week 4. They got a winning effort from Jaxson Dart, a rookie first-round pick who is the next great hope to become the franchise quarterback they have been in need of. The pass rush was dominant against the Chargers. Cam Skattebo looked like the kind of back with attitude the Giants have not seen since the heyday of Brandon Jacobs.
The Giants had hope. Hope that they could end the day on a winning streak for the first time in two years. Hope that a brighter day had arrived.
The Giants took all that hope, all those good vibes and flushed them on Sunday in an awful 26-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
The Giants fumbled some of that optimism away. They threw some of it away. They took whatever was left of it after the fumbles and interceptions and torched it with penalties, drops and other assorted mistakes.
This was a game the Giants should have won. Clearly. They had a 14-3 lead and it looked like the good times were rolling. Then, they took the victory they had in hand, put it in a nice box, wrapped it with some pretty paper, put a bow on it, walked it across the field and gifted it to a previously winless Saints team.
They also pretty much wrecked any chance their season had of not resembling something like the 3-14 disaster that nearly got head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen fired a year ago.
The Giants turned the ball over on five straight possessions. Per the CBS broadcast, they are the first team to accomplish that ignominious feat since the Jets did it NINE years ago. They had eight penalties for 95 yards. They had drops. They had missed opportunities.
“We had a lot of opportunities where we were moving the ball down the field and we would hurt ourselves,” Dart said. “We just gave the game away with all the turnovers.
“The whole game we moved the ball, we had turnovers. There weren’t many times where we got
stopped, we were really good in the open field, we just turned the ball over.”
The Saints made one nice play, an 87-yard touchdown pass from Spencer Rattler to Rashid Shaheed. For the most part, the Giants gave them everything else. Here is a look at how the Giants’ mistakes changed the outcome:
Here is another way to look at it:
- Tae Banks’ 25-yard pass interference penalty that negated a Jevon Holland interception in New Orleans’ territory led to three Saints points.
- The 87-yard pass to Shaheed was preceded by Darius Slayton failing to catch a long pass from Dart that would have put the Giants in the red zone. That’s at least three points, maybe seven, off the board for the Giants.
- On third-and-2 from the Giants’ 48-yard line after the Shaheed touchdown, offensive coordinator Mike Kafka dialed up a flea flicker that should have been a touchdown and a 21-13 Giants’ lead. Instead, Dart was both late and short with the throw. The Giants punted. By my count, the Giants could have been ahead by as much as 28-10 at this point. Instead, they were ahead 14-13.
- After New Orleans placekicker Blake Grupe missed from 52 yards, Darius Slayton killed a Giants’ drive with a sloppy fumble inside the Saints’ 35-yard line. That turned into a Grupe field goal and a 16-14 New Orleans halftime lead.
“I don’t know how I lost the ball,” Slayton said. “Obviously, right there I have to be better, I have to do a better job at securing the ball.”
- Dart, untouched, fumbled to wreck a promising Giants drive at the start of the third quarter. That led to three more New Orleans points.
- Then came Skattebo’s back-breaking fumbled at the Saints’ 15-yard line, turning a potential Giants touchdown into an 86-yard Saints score and a 26-14 deficit the Malik Nabers-less Giants had little chance of overcoming.
“I handed them a touchdown,” Skattebo said. “Just got to be better, hold onto the ball. We preach to take care of the ball and that is all I got to do, that’s my job.”
Skattebo apologized via social media. A nice touch, maybe, but it doesn’t change anything.
- Two Dart interceptions followed as the Giants desperately tried to come back with no Nabers, no Tyrone Tracy, and with Slayton sidelined by a late-game hamstring injury.
Turnovers on five straight possessions is “hard to do,” admitted Giants head coach Brian Daboll.
“You get five turnovers to zero, you’re not going to win in this league,” Daboll said.
No, you’re not.
It’s one thing to lose games to teams that are better than you, or that outplay you. The Saints are not better than the Giants. The Giants beat the Giants on Sunday. The Giants basically beat themselves Week 2 against the Dallas Cowboys.
If you thought the victory over Los Angeles showed that maybe the Giants were finally figuring out how not to beat themselves, think again. They really don’t know how to get out of their own way.
Question is, when will the Giants win again? When will they even have an opportunity?
The Giants face the 4-1 Philadelphia Eagles twice in the next three weeks. They face the 3-2 Denver Broncos, who just handed the Eagles their first loss. They face the 4-1 San Francisco 49ers. Nabers isn’t coming to rescue them. Slayton might be out. Points will be difficult to produce. The Giants could easily be 1-8 when they travel to Chicago to face the Bears in Week 10.
Sunday’s up-and-down start doesn’t mean Dart is a bust. Just like the Week 4 start didn’t mean it was obvious Dart would be the Giants’ answer at quarterback for the next 10 years.
Maybe Dart will be the guy who finally helps the Giants get back to respectability. Sunday was a reminder, though, that the rookie quarterback can’t fix all the problems that consistently plague the Giants.
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