Giants-Cowboys: 5 plays that led to the Giants’ loss

How the Giants fell short in upset bid

The New York Giants lost their home Week 4 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys by a score of 20-15 on Thursday night. The Giants out-possessed the Cowboys by 11 minutes with only 26 rushing yards — a very peculiar circumstance. Dallas was a sieve on the ground over the last two weeks. Nevertheless, New York was very efficient with its passing attack, but missed opportunities were abundant.

New York did an excellent job keeping quarterback Daniel Jones clean. He was sacked just once and finished 29 of 40 with 281 yards passing, including a game-ending interception in a last-ditch effort to score the ever-evasive touchdown that eluded the Giants all night.

The Giants out-gained Dallas 303 to 293 yards. Rookie sensation Malik Nabers caught 12 of 15 targets for 115 yards before leaving the game with a concussion. Wan’Dale Robinson received 14 targets and caught 11 of them for 71 yards. His average depth of target remains incredibly low, but he entered the game top-10 in missed tackles forced; he earned several more on Thursday.

The Giants have an extended break before traveling across the country to play Seattle in Week 5. Here are the five impactful plays and situations that led to the Giants’ Week 4 loss.

Play(s) 1: Five threes, no sevens

The Giants did a fantastic job possessing the football and extending drives through an efficient, quick passing attack. Unfortunately for New York, there’s more to winning football games than possessing the football. After an impressive performance in the red zone last week vs. Cleveland, Jones and the offense were halted on all their drives, leading to five Greg Joseph field goals.

The Giants had a 15-play drive, two 11-play drives, a 10-play drive, and two eight-play drives, but they could only muster 15 points. They possessed the football for 11 minutes more than Dallas. Still, the team is hampered by an offense that relies entirely on efficiency due to a lack of execution generating explosive plays when opportunities arise.

Play(s) 2: Daniel Jones’ underthrows

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Daniel Jones underthrew Malik Nabers and Darius Slayton multiple times in Week 4. The wideouts had vertical separation, with the potential for touchdowns, but the passes forced the wide receivers to slow up, resulting in incomplete passes. The inaccuracy on deep passes were a problem through the first three weeks of the season.

Before the game against Dallas, the only pass completed 20 yards or more downfield was Nabers stealing an interception from Martin Emerson Jr. in Week 3. Jones completed this 39-yard pass to Nabers early against the Cowboys, but this should arguably be a touchdown:

Although somehow catchable — it hits Darius Slayton in the hands — this throw is also underthrown:

Then there was the free play miss:

Jones’ deep ball accuracy is a problem so far in 2024. Sometimes, he underthrows the ball, like in this game, and sometimes, he puts too much on the ball; sometimes, he doesn’t have enough touch on the pass, and it’s more on a line. All three of the misses above are from the far-hash and are underthrown.

Play(s) 3: Dowdle for the score

Dallas dialed up a well-executed screen that Rico Dowdle took for 15 yards and a score on their second offensive possession. Two flags rained in on the play, but the touchdown stood.

Coach Brian Daboll stated that the refs overturned the call because it was not an ineligible man downfield, which appears to be correct. However, there are certainly holds to the play side that were missed:

It seems like Thibodeaux and Flott are both held to some extent in this play. The fact that flags were thrown — at least not for holding — and then subsequently picked up is not a good look, albeit the Giants certainly did not lose this football game due to the officiating. However, that call looked so much worse directly following the Giants’ promising opening drive that was halted by one of the worst calls you’ll ever see:

Daniel Bellinger, the Giants’ player in blue, was called for the face mask on this play. A third-and-3 was turned into a second-and-18; the result was Greg Joseph’s first of five field goals in the game, this one for 52 yards.

Did it cost the Giants the game? No, New York had plenty of opportunity to seize the momentum toward victory. However, it did have an impact and was a shockingly incompetent call by the officials.

Play 4: CeeDee Lamb goes yard

Dak Prescott did a great job identifying the blitz on first-and-10 and taking his one-on-one shot to CeeDee Lamb for the Cowboys’ second touchdown:

The Giants blitz the field apex defender. The pre-snap defense had the field safety about 10 yards behind the blitzing defender, which is a hint for the quarterback. Once the blitz was confirmed and picked up well by Deuce Vaughn, that gave Prescott the information to look at the boundary safety, see his positioning, and then take the one-on-one shot against Tae Banks before that single-high safety could work back to the boundary, after starting on that side but shading to the field upon assuming the middle-of-the-field closed look.

Play(s) 5: Early third-and-3 defense

The Cowboys converted two third-and-3 situations on their 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive when the Giants were ahead 3-0. With the ball on Dallas’ 48, right before being drilled by Brian Burns, Dak Prescott threaded the needle to Cowboys’ second-year fullback, Hunter Luepke:

Thibodeaux (5) created interior pressure, and Elijah Chatman (94) looped outside to contain Prescott (4), who found Luepke (40) between Isaiah Simmons (19) and Cor’Dale Flott (28) for the first down. Prescott delivered a perfect pass to Brandin Cooks (3) for 16yards on his stacked release underneath Jake Ferguson (87) five plays later on third-and-3:

Cooks worked outward underneath the release to expand Flott outside the numbers before using Ferguson and Simmons as a pick to create space for Prescott to find Cooks. Although Dallas took a hiding penalty two plays later, the Giants surrendered the Dowdle touchdown on second-and-goal from the 15-yard line.

Early defensive stops on third-and-3 could have either led to a tie 3-3 game or the Giants receiving the football back with the potential to go up 10-0; I understand that sounds ludicrous due to the Giants’ inability to score touchdowns on Thursday, but it could have changed the script of the game.