They trudged out of MetLife Stadium again, after watching their quarterback who cannot win at home and a once-proud defense that crumbles in every big moment and was an embarrassment to all the winners of the Lawrence Taylor bobblehead giveaway.
Their 27-22 loss to Jayden Daniels and the Commanders gives them an 0-5 home record as The Greatest Woe on Turf.
Where the phenom rookie toasts his offense and the All-World Nose Tackle roasts his defense.
Where the head coach has to start thinking long and hard about ending the Daniel Jones Era should he lose to the 2-7 Panthers in Germany with another season careening toward another premature burial.
Daniel Jones wasn’t half-bad in the second half on Sunday. In fact, he was better than he usually is at MetLife Stadium. The problem is he was bad enough in the 21-7 first-half deficit and the Giants could never recover because they do not know how to win.
The game plan called for a one-dimensional Ground and Pound smashmouth attack that Brian Daboll defended because it averaged 6.8 yards per carry.
But it came at the expense of a frozen-out Malik Nabers, whose one first-half target from Jones was batted away by Frankie Luvu.
Nabers’ frustration was only exacerbated by watching his precocious LSU quarterback, Daniels (15-22, 209 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 8-35 rushing) mimic “The Natural.”
Jones had 50 rushing yards in the 142-yard first-half assault, but was 4-for-6 for zero yards — ZERO yards!! — and a fumble in the first half.
And so:
“I don’t call the plays,” Nabers said. “When you run the clock out in the first half, you’re scratching in the second half to try to score points, as many as possible. As an offense, you’ve got to be versatile. You’ve got to be able to run. You’ve got to be able to pass. You can’t pick between half and half what you want to do. But like I said, I’m not the play-caller.”
Uh oh.
And he’s not the general manager.
“You’ve got to build up,” Nabers said. “You’ve got to put the right people in place to be successful. You’ve got to get the right keys. You’ve got to get the right guys on the team to win. Obviously, the Commanders have done that. They’ve got the right guys that they want to be on the team, and they’re winning.”
Daboll and GM Joe Schoen aren’t only broiling in Quarterback Hell, they are in Franchise Hell and are having a devil of a time at 2-7.
What is unspoken about Daboll’s first-half plan was him having more confidence running it than Jones passing it. Until it was too little too late.
“Had nothing to do with Daniel throwing it or not throwing it,” Daboll said.
Except for all the good that Ground & Pound did, the Giants scored only those seven points — on Jones’ first touchdown pass at home in 672 days, a 2-yarder to tight end Chris Manhertz.
You don’t beat a dual-threat quarterback with a single-threat quarterback.
“Maybe didn’t expect to run it that much, but we were running it really well and effectively moving the ball,” Jones said.
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Jones’ first-quarter sack-fumble started Daniels at the Giants 31, and helped position his 1-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin against beleaguered Deonte Banks that had followed a 22-yard pass interference against Cor’Dale Flott.
Nabers (9-59) finished with 11 targets after Daboll was forced to let the maddening Jones (16-20, 174 yards, 1 TD, 1 TD rushing in the second half) air it out.
A second half that saw:
A 3-yard touchdown pass to Wan’Dale Robinson negated by a suspect pick-play pass interference on Darius Slayton that forced a field goal.
A pair of analytics-driven failed two-point conversions at 10-24 and 22-27 when Jones was stopped on a rush and then didn’t bother throwing it on a sack.
“I felt good about what we had,” Daboll said.
A 42-yard Daniels bomb to a wide-open Olamide Zaccheaus before the two-minute warning that iced the game.
Remember the good old days when LT, or Michael Strahan would rise up in the fourth quarter with Giants fans roaring, “Dee-Fense, Dee-Fense?” The Giants failed to sack Daniels (ribs).
“They had a lot of chippers,” Lawrence said.
The Giants have no chance without a pass rush with their secondary vulnerable and under construction.
“We’ve got to be more precise,” Lawrence said. “I think as a team and as individuals, we’ve got to understand the game a little more, understand why certain things are being called, understand the importance of situations in the game and momentum shifts in the game. We haven’t been good at that and that’s the thing.”
They haven’t been good at much and that’s the thing. Your 2024 New York Football Giants: The Greatest Woe on Turf.
