The New York Giants were blown out on Sunday Night Football by the Dallas Cowboys.
Nothing went right for New York on Sunday. They fell, 40-0, to the Cowboys as they now become the only team in the NFC East without a win.
Buy Giants TicketsHere’s a quick breakdown of what we saw during the game and how we graded the Giants in this loss.
Offense: F
Big Blue’s offense started off strong with a would-be statement opening drive that ended up in a field goal attempt. Unfortunately, it was blocked for a touchdown and practically nothing went right again.
Everything starts with the big boys up front, and the offensive line was simply abysmal. They allowed 12 quarterback hits and 7.0 sacks on the night as there was constant leakage. John Michael Schmitz had a tough time snapping the ball in the rain causing some extra pressure for Daniel Jones. Furthermore, Evan Neal did not get his revenge game against the Cowboys’ defensive front as Demarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons were constantly in the backfield.
However, Jones is not without blame as he did have two interceptions. While the first interception was not the quarterback’s fault the second one was a poor decision on a ball he should have thrown away. There were also a couple of other passes where Jones threw the ball in harm’s way which could have been picked off.
But when the offensive line is a turnstile all game it leaves the quarterback feeling desperate and wanting to do anything to bring some life to the team. Sadly, the Giants were not resurrected in Week 1.
Overall, scoring zero points, totaling 171 yards, and three turnovers is far less than ideal. The offense will need to bounce back next Sunday.
Defense: D
While the offense did not exactly help out the defense, it was not like the reverse was the case. Allowing 26 defensive is not something to hang your hat on.
It seems like the trenches are an issue for the Giants in all facets of the game as they got practically no pressure on Dak Prescott. They hit him three times and failed to sack him even once. This was also evident in the run game as Tony Pollard was able to average 5.0 yards per carry on 14 attempts while also reaching paydirt twice.
The only positive was that Prescott was held under a 55-percent completion percentage and scored zero touchdowns on the day.
Special Teams: F
Any time a team allows a touchdown on special teams not much can be done to redeem the grade.
Graham Gano missed both of his field goal attempts as one of them was blocked for a touchdown and the other was a missed 36-yard attempt he should have made.
The rest of the unit played up to par as they allowed 17 punt return yards and Jamie Gillan averaged 53.3 yards per punt. The play was definitely not good enough to save them from a failing grade, though.
Coaching: F
Once again, not much to really break down here. Brian Daboll & Co. evidently did not have their team ready to play. If that was not evident by the score you could turn on the game and see all the dirty laundry on the field from all the penalties on the night.
Six were enforced for 72 yards but if Dallas wanted to enforce every call the Giants would have had far more than 100 yards in penalties.
They went into the half down 26-0 and sadly Daboll seemed to make no second-half adjustments as the team came out once again with no life and let the score balloon to 40-0.
As for the coordinators, Mike Kafka has a hard job with the offensive line he is coaching but abandoning the run early was clearly not the right decision. He will need to scheme some elaborate pass protections for Jones because as of now DJ is on pace to be the most pressured quarterback in football.
As for the defensive side of the ball, Wink Martindale is supposed to be known as someone who draws up complex pass rushes and unique blitzes to get after the quarterback but none of that was really seen on Sunday night. He will have an opportunity to bounce back next week against the Arizona Cardinals but right now it’s looking ugly.
